3?Re floral ftuliiiief tirul ^Pictorial 
:,ome feamppiuori. 
^ Jh&W |katfrau[ + 
BEFORE THE GLASS. 
Her maiden twines the rainbow pearl* 
About her golden hair, 
While loosely yet some wayward curls 
Caress her forehead fair; 
Then clasps around her graceful throat 
More pearls on velvet warm; 
Ah I never yet did white robes float 
About so sweet a form. 
She rises; towards the mirror tall 
She turns her satined feet, 
Her glances quickly rise and fall. 
So fair a sight to meet; 
The gentle blushes come and go 
As eyelids droop and lift, 
Tor, ah! she cannot choose but know 
She has the fatal gift. 
Will knowledge make her wise in time,' 
And teach her that her dower 
Is fruitful source of many a crime— 
Has victims every hour ? 
Go, Ethel, win in beauty’s race, 
Eemembering ere you start, 
Unlovely is the loveliest face 
That hides a truthless heart. 
HOMES OF TASTE. 
SUGGESTIONS TO AMATEURS. 
No. 1. 
An ingenious ami tasteful woman cannot be content 
to live without pretty tilings about her. She may not 
have means to purchase those rare and costly orna¬ 
ments that belong to her more wealthy neighbor, 
but she sets her wits at work to invent substitutes. 
She even tries her hand at high art, never afraid to 
venture upon untried fields, and as she proceeds her 
self-confidence increases. Her first effort satisfies her 
that the thing can really be done, and so she perseveres 
in her experiments until results are entirely satis¬ 
factory, and she can show something artistic and 
excellent, which will not suffer by comparison with 
the costliest. 
As an illustration of my meaning, I propose to give 
a few plain directions for producing imitations of some 
elegant and expensive articles, which, if successfully 
done, will amply repay the moderate outlay of time 
and material. In the present paper I shall describe 
a method of imitating the beautiful 
JAPANESE LACQUERED TABLES 
which are so ornamental in a lady’s parlor. To begin, 
one need not go to the expense of having a table made 
expressly for this purpose, but may use some little 
stand, shabby, perhaps, but sound, and of a light and 
graceful shape. I have often seen such for sale in 
auction-rooms, amongst the refuse of persons declining 
housekeeping, and once bought one of them for only 
fifty cents. After it was ornamented I could have sold, 
it for twenty dollars. The duel requisite is that the 
surface shall he free from breaks or cracks, and as 
smooth as possible. It may he ot any description of 
wood, painted or varnished; hut before commencing 
our efforts at transformation, it must he thoroughly 
cleansed from grease or stickiness, and then rubbed 
over with sandpaper until all roughness is removed. 
If there are any small cracks or holes, let them he 
carefully filled with putty, which may he left to harden 
for awhile before proceeding further. 
Next, paint the table all over with a good coating of 
black Japan varnish, and as soon as this is thoroughly 
dry we are ready to trace the pattern upon the top. 
This pattern may he either a landscape or a group of 
flowers, and needs only to he an outline sketch. Per¬ 
haps the easiest way of marking the design upon the 
black surface will he to draw a duplicate upon a sheet 
of stiff card-hoard, and then, with a penknife, cut out 
the shapes of the largest flowers. They • will thus 
form a sort of stencil, and by laying it down in proper 
position, it will be easy enough to mark around the 
edges of all the openings. 
The handsomest specimens of papier machic are 
ornamented with pearl, and there will he no difficulty 
in applying it here. The shells of pearl are quite 
thin, and of different sizes, some being quite small, 
and others an inch or more in diameter. For flowers 
the smaller pieces will answer every purpose; hut if 
we have a castle, oc sheet of water to he covered, we 
shall, of course, require the larger ones. The largest 
flowers in our group, which have just been marked out 
for us, will he the ones for pearling, and the pieces 
may be selected for each one, choosing such as are 
nearly of the right size or shape. Sharp corners may 
he smoothed off with a file, and made to cover the 
outlines pretty nearly. If the centre is not quite fitted, 
it will not matter, as that will he afterwards concealed. 
Arrange them just as they are intended to lie, and 
then fix them firmly in place by taking up the pieces 
one by one, and touching the under side with a little 
spirit varnish or thin glue; then press them down 
tight, and they will stick. If there is no pearl to he 
had, bright tin-foil will answer a very good purpose, 
and it will even do to use both in the same group, 
taking the foil for leaves and pearl for flowers. In 
case this is to he done, the foil will not be applied until 
a later stage of the work. 
Having fixed the pearl, give the whole surface a 
second and a third coat of black varnish; leave them 
to dry well, and then remove the same from the pearl 
by means of a knife, being at the same time extremely 
careful not to scratch the surrounding edges. If it he 
not now quite level, it must have another coat or two, 
repeating the scraping as before. When the surface 
is perfectly dry and hard, it is to he polished by 
rubbing well with turpentine aud pumice powder, 
using a roll of woolen rags for a rubber if you have 
nothing better. This gives a fine polish, which can 
he improved by a further rubbing with rotten-stone 
and water, applied with a silk handkerchief. Having 
thus prepared a very smooth and level surface, the 
ornamentation may now he begun. Lay down the 
stencil pattern, placing the pearls in their proper 
openings, and hold it with the left hand, so that it 
may not slip. Mark the places where you desire to 
have the foil, and cut the leaves of proper shapes with 
a pair of scissors, placing and fixing them by means 
of a little glue or varnish, as with the pearl. The 
painting may next he done, either by copying from 
the original design, or, if the operator he not enough of 
an artist to attempt this, let the stencil he used, and 
paint over the openings with transparent colors mixed 
with varnish. For crimson, use one or more coats of 
crimson lake until the shade is deep enough. First, 
however, let the centre and all spaces which the pearl 
does not quite cover be painted over with zinc-white, 
and also the outlines of the flowers; this will enable us 
to give them smooth edges, and will cause them to 
stand out distinctly upon the black background. 
When this white body paint is dry the crimson will 
show beautifully upon it, changing it to a pink, the 
pearl shining through 
the transparent lake, which 
tinges without concealing it. For blue, use Prussian 
blue; for yellow, yellow lake ; and for green, the two 
last mentioned mixed, adding burnt or raw sienna to 
shade it or change it to a brownish or reddish tint. 
Purple is obtained by mixing the blue and crimson. 
Apply these colors to the leaves of foil as well as to 
the flowers, and thus you will have the principal 
objects of your group complete, except stamens and 
veins, which may easily he traced with a fine sable 
brush, using white paints, shaded with brown or 
green. The little stems and tendrils, as well as clus¬ 
ters or sprays of small flowers, are to he pencilled in 
to fill up the group, using body colors such as cadmium, 
vermillion, and chrome yellow, with white. and ultra- 
marine. These will give all the tints required for any 
bouquet, and may he varied to suit the occasion. 
If gilding is to he used in addition to the colors, it 
may he applied either from a gold saucer, or by tracing 
the lines with a fine brush dipped in gold size, and 
then laying on gold leaf with a gilder’s tip, which is a 
flat brush of badger’s hair made for this purpose. The 
former will, however, he .easier for a beginner, and will 
answer quite as well. When all this is done it will 
need a coat of Damar varnish, and after' several days 
drying a polishing with the rotten-stone and water. 
With these plain directions any article of furniture, 
the panels of doors, hacks of chairs, screens, work- 
boxes, &c., may he ornamented and finished in close 
imitation of lacquerware, and to an ingenious person 
many other uses will suggest themselves besides those 
named. Anna M. Hyde. 
A Pretty Table Ornament. —A correspondent of 
The Garden says: “I was much struck lately with 
the wonderfully beautiful effect produced by simply 
placing a handful of heads of wheat in a vase of water. 
Each grain sent out bright green leaflets, and con¬ 
tinued to replenish the fading ones for w^eeks together. 
Some have doubtless seen this pretty table ornament, 
hut to me it was new, and perhaps -would be to many 
others.” 
Fire-Proof Dresses. —Either of three substances— 
phosphate of ammonia, tungstate of soda, and sulphate 
of ammonia—can he mixed in the starch, and, at the 
cost of tw-'o cents a dress, deaths from burned garments 
can he rendered impossible. Articles of apparel sub¬ 
jected to those agents can, if they burn at all, only 
smoulder; and in no case can they blaze up in the 
sudden and terrible manner in which so many fatal 
accidents have occurred to the fair v'earers of crinoline. 
The Belles of Seville. —Seville women justify 
their reputation for beauty more thoroughly than 
those of any other Spanish city. Prettiness is a more 
appropriate term to specify their personal attractions. 
They resemble each other to a surprising degree, as in 
all pure races of a marked type. Their eyes fringed 
with long black lashes,, produce an effect of white and 
black unknown to our colder, less passionate clime. 
It seems as if the sun had left its reflection in those 
magnificent orbs, equally noticeable in the face of 
some two-year-old child and in the gypsy girls of 
France. The gleaming and glancing and the burning 
of these eyes has a very expressive word in Spanish 
called ojear, which is full of subtle meaning, although 
these eye-thrusts, so embarrassing to strangers, have 
nothing particularly significant. Tho large, ardent, 
velvety eyes of a young Sevillean glance upon a dog- 
in the street with the same intensity she would bestow 
upon some more worthy object. The exquisite small¬ 
ness of the ladies’ feet is too well known to dw'ell 
upon; many could he easily held in a child’s hand, 
and the fair Andalusians are justly proud of this 
quality, and wear shoes accordingly, not differing so 
very much from the Chinese shoes. 
