H^fie l^oikes’ Hi oral illaEiaet toil Pictorial fionie S^oiii|iartion 
Ah, little maiden, frank and fair, 
With rosy lips apart, 
With sunbeams glinting in your hair, 
And sunbeams at your Ufcairt! 
Glad sounds about your senses rise, 
That have no voice for me ; 
Blithe visions dance before your eyes, 
That mine may never see* 
And are. the flowers so rare, love? 
And is the day so bright ? 
For me the boughs are bare, love, 
And chill descends the night. 
Ah, me! I mind me of a time, 
Deep in the buried past, 
When 1, too, dwelt in the sweet clime 
Wherein your lot is cast; 
When fragrance floated on the breeze, 
When heaven bent blue above, 
And every wild bird in the trees 
Sang still of hope and love. 
Dead are those flowers so rare, love, 
And dimmed that day so bright, 
For me the boughs are bare, love, 
And chill descends the night. 
Grim clouds came up, and overspread 
The heavens with sullen gray; 
The roses drooped, the fragrance fled, 
The breezes died away. 
And now, of all the happy throng, 
One bird is left alone. 
To sing a broken-hearted song 
Of joys forever flown. 
Dead are those flowers so rare, love, 
And dimmed that day so bright, 
For me the boughs are bare, love, 
And chill descends the night. 
Housekeeping, in the generally accepted sense of 
the word, is home-keeping. And home is, or should 
he, the magnet toward which our hearts ever turn. 
It is a necessity of our civilized nature to have some 
abiding place. What a strange spectacle would be 
presented if our home-keepers were to fold their tents 
like the Arabs, and as silently steal away. How 
deeply must the author of “Home, Sweet Home,” 
(himself a homeless man) have felt the meaning of 
the words he uttered. Although our homes may he 
“ ever so humble,” they need not necessarily he hare 
and unattractive. It should he not only our pleasure, 
but our duty, to make them as pleasant and inviting 
as is consistent with our circumstances. House¬ 
keepers are no longer looked upon merely as drudges, 
who perform their whole duty if they prepare the 
regular meals, wash, scrub, and mend for their 
families. Many ingenious devices of the brain have 
been utilized for their benefit, so that whichever way 
they may turn there is something to lighten or ex¬ 
pedite their tasks. And now may we not look for, 
and confidently expect, a high'er plane of house¬ 
keeping, or home-keeping? 
“ A perfect woman, nobly planned. 
To warn, to comfort, to command, 
And yet a spirit, still and bright. 
With something of an angel light.’ 
If every woman would endeavor to raise herself 
to this type of womanhood, then might every heart 
truly sing: 
“The dearest spot of earth to me, 
Is Home, sweet Home.” 
Thei’e are too many homes where brightness and 
pleasantness seldom enter. There is always some¬ 
thing to be done, too much remaining undone to 
think of pausing a little while to do any unnecessary 
“ fixing up,” or to brush down the mental cobwebs 
(which will oftentimes collect in the busy housewife’s 
brain,) by devoting a few moments to reading. To 
such we would say: Read whenever you do have a 
spare moment, though it he scarcely sufficient to 
glance at a single article. You will have food for 
your thoughts as you busy yourself again about your 
household duties. Reading is, as it were, only the 
cream. Unless we subject it to the churning process 
of thought, we can never expect it to develop into 
anything that will benefit ourselves or others. 
Every woman knows best in what elements her 
home is wanting, and any one possessing ordinary 
intelligence can gather, from the multitude of articles 
written upon the subject, such suggestions as will 
best enable her to supply the want. 
Who need sigh for anything prettier, with which 
to adorn their homes, than flowers ? Who could ask 
or a beautiful gift to become theirs more freely or 
spontaneously? If we “look through Nature up to 
Nature’s God,” then, truly, are flowers educators as 
well as books, pictures, or music, and more' truly 
beautiful and pure in their teachings. Then there 
are a thousand pretty and useful articles which skill¬ 
ful hands can fashion from almost nothing. Long 
curtains, looped at the window sides, do not, neces¬ 
sarily, belong only to them who can afford damask 
and lace. A cheap material, for humbler homes, 
costing hut a few cents per yard, will last for a long 
time, and always come out the whiter and fresher for 
the repeated baths it may require. Loop them hack, 
loosely, with bright ribbon ; suspend a rustic basket 
containing vines midway in the window. Train the 
vines over the curtain, they are easily secured just 
where they are wanted. Try it. You cannot fail to 
appreciate the change from the stiff, rolled curtain 
and hare casings. Old boxes, tolerated only for their 
capacity of holding just what there seems to he no 
other place for, may he converted into pretty seats to 
place under windows, by making a cushion for the 
lid and covering the whole with some pretty material. 
Do not allow your walls to remain destitute of 
pictures because you cannot afford costly or showy 
frames. From the old magazines lying about, clip 
some of the pictures you like best, those which seem 
to have the most reading in them, for if there are 
“sermons in stones” are there not volumes in pic¬ 
tures ? Leave a white margin all around your picture. 
Procure a glass, of the same size and bind the two 
together with gilt, silver or fancy colored paper. 
Strings are easily added by pressing strijis of cloth, 
wet in glue paste, over the ends. Be sure that your 
work is thoroughly safe and dry before you trust it 
upon the wall. Biud several and hang in a group, or 
about other pictures. Autumn leaves, nicely pressed 
and varnished and arranged in the form of wreaths, 
harps, or crosses, upon a white background, are taste¬ 
ful ornaments to any home. Imitation coral baskets 
and baskets made of hoops, with the webbing left on, 
are very pretty. Tie the pieces in small circles, or in 
the form of the figure 8. After you have fastened 
them all together as you wish, tie on grape stems 
(minus the grapes.) Have ready a mass of melted 
beeswax, thickened with Vermillion, and with a spoon 
turn it carefully over every part. If your treatment 
has been skillful, you cannot fail of being pleased. 
One short article can, at most, contain but a few 
vague hints about our home surroundings. Yet “a 
word to the wise ” may not he amiss. Only 
“ Make your home beautiful—gather the roses 
That hoard up the sunshine with exquisite art; 
Perchance they may pour, as your dread darkness closes, 
That soft summer sunshine down into your heart! 
If you can do so, 0 ! make it an Eden 
Of beauty and gladness, remember ’tis Arise; 
'TAvill teach yon to long for that home von are needing. 
That heaA r en of beauty beyond the blue skies.” 
* * * * * * 
“ Make home a hive, where all beautiful feelings 
Cluster like bees, and their honey-dew bring; 
Make it a temple of holy revealings. 
And love its bright angel with k shadowy wing. 1 
Then shall it he when afar on life’s billow, 
Wherever your tom pest-tossed children are flung. 
They will long for the shades of the home Aveeping Avillow, 
And sing the SAveet song Avhich their mother had sung.” 
Cost of “Keeping Company.” — The cost of 
taking your girl to a ball in New York, according to 
Jennie June, is not at all a trifle. Supposing the 
young man to be possessed of the indispensable 
“dress” suit, the faultless shirt, the fine cambric, the 
French hoots, there is sure to he the delicately-tinted 
cravat and kid gloves to provide, tickets to purchase, 
(for belle's mamma is, perhaps, a lady manager, and 
depends on selling a hundred dollars’ worth at least, to 
the young gentlemen who dance with her daughters 
and eat her chicken salad), a bouquet to order, car¬ 
riage to look out for, supper to pay for, (the latter 
for mamma, a cousin, a hungry friend, or something, 
as well as via belle herself), so that, before he is 
through, the expenses of a single hall will foot up 
something like the following: Cravat, $1.50; Gloves, 
$2.50 ; tickets, (2), $10; bouquet, $5; supper, (3), 
including champagne, $15; total, $39. An item 
this, in a salary of $1500 a year, or $30 per week. 
This, too, is doing things on the very smallest possi¬ 
ble scale, and at the risk of being considered “mean,” 
for there are always unattended sisters, or some one 
spending the winter, who would like to be invited, 
and for whom must he executed the entire programme. 
Then, no unmarried lady is now content with one 
bouquet. Belleship is counted by the number of mag¬ 
nificent bouquets of English rose-buds and carnations 
it draws at its chariot wheels. Shall all the flowers 
he bestowed upon favorite siugers, and none left, to 
crown the queens of youth and beauty ? By no means. 
Sharp young fellows who have learned tactics, there¬ 
fore, are rather apt to fight shy of inviting young 
ladies to balls on their own account. They let papa 
or a chaperone take a couple of carriage loads, set 
them down inside the “Academy,” and then they ap¬ 
pear in a faultless get-up, present their bouquets, and 
come off with flying colors, for an extra bouquet will 
make amends for everything with the belle of a hall. 
Ladies Worth. Marrying. —“A few days ago, just 
at dusk, after a cold rain had set in, two English girls 
and their handsome gray-haired father arrived. They 
were cold and damp, and the hotel was cold and damp, 
and as'we sat by our blazing fire and heard them go 
into their cold rooms, we pitied them so much that we 
opened our door and invited them to share our warmth 
and comfort; so they came in and chatted together all 
the evening. Those two bright, fresh-looking girls 
sat calmly in their chairs and told us they had crossed 
from Meiringen to the Rhone Glacier, over the Griin- 
sel, on foot the day before, through a foot of snow; 
had walked nine miles down the valley that morning, 
and then climbed up all the way from Viesch to the 
hotel on foot in the rain that afternoon. We looked 
at them aghast, and murmured, ‘Tired!’ ‘Oh, no,’ 
they briskly chorused ; and indeed they did look most 
revoltingly fresh and pretty. When we did appear in 
the morning, father (who always comes to breakfast 
from out of doors, with a blast of cold air, very much 
as if he had slept on the nearest glacier) announced 
that ‘ those English girls started to walk up to the 
summit of the Eergischhorn two hours ago, and are 
coming hack in time to cross the Aletach glacier to go 
to the Belle Alp for the night! Before long they 
came in brisk and rosy as usual. ‘ Oh, no; not tired 
at all! — and without waiting for anything more than 
a lunch they were off again. AVe groaned in spirit as 
we saw' them disappear around a promontory — Hart¬ 
ford Times. 
Precocious Boy munching the fruit of the date 
tree: “Mamma, if I eat dates enough will I growup 
to he an almanac ?” 
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