EASTER. 
Clarice with the tender eyes, 
Fair, and sweet, and full of hopes, 
As birds of summer-tide; 
Clarice filling daily needs 
With little petty, toilsome tas'ks 
Around the fireside. 
Sweet and pure the maiden’s heart; 
Like to river, clear and free, 
Ran life’s melody 
Through the household as she sang; 
Merry trill now high and clear, 
Then so tenderly. 
Unto all things true she was; 
Each new day, with gay content, 
Like the flowers she grew; 
And earth smiled thro’ summer sun, 
And rains fell, and winter snows, 
And Clarice bloomed anew. 
But one day her heart awoke— 
Tender heart so strong and true, 
And Clarice looked within. 
“ Ah, dear Christ,”'she murmured low, 
“ Little am I, faint and weak, 
Very full of sin. 
* 
“ Make me, doing service grand, 
To fulfill thy work somewhere.” 
So did Clarice pray. 
And the earth smiled on, and sun, 
Sky and bird and tree rejoiced; 
And ’twas Easter Day. 
Low an undertone of peace 
Fell upon the young girl’s soul 
In a rhythm divine: ‘ 
“ In no grand work breathing fame 
Do I call that you should prove 
You are child of mine. 
“ Nay; but if each day you show 
In the home I gave to you 
Love’s sweet servitude, 
I will give you pledge divine 
Of your royal heritance.” 
Ceased the interlude. 
Clarice fell upon her knee, 
Bowed her soft hair like a veil; 
Glad sbe was to pray. 
“ Loving Thee, I yield my will; 
Other offering have I none 
On this Easter Day.” 
And the earth smiled on, 
Waking to the tender touch 
Of new-blooming spring. 
But the fairest flower of all 
Was our Clarice, iuterweaving 
Love in everything. — Selected. 
TASTE IN HOUSEHOLD ART. 
During the last few years the general standard of 
taste in our homes has changed materially for the 
better. Before South Kensington and kindred influences 
began to make themselves felt, taste was at a low ebb 
indeed. Textile fabrics were poor and bizarre in de¬ 
sign ; interior decoration, upholstery, cabinet-work, 
glass and china, jewelry—all were to the last degree 
wanting in taste. Common sense seemed to be disre¬ 
garded in almost every department of furnishing. 
Our condition in regard to these matters is slowly im¬ 
proving. The last ten years have been unusually active 
ones in the matter of reform. People are beginning to 
be independent of the caprices of fashion in the furnish¬ 
ing of their homes, and are finding out that a piece of 
furniture once good is always good; that rich simplicity 
is preferable to gaudy display; that honesty of con¬ 
struction and design is the best policy in the long run; 
in a word, that there is something in Household Art 
after all. 
Still there are some people who cling to the erroneous 
idea that large expenditure is necessary to secure artis¬ 
tic effect, or supposing that a house to be artistic, must 
needs be luxurious. “Oh, I should like so much to 
adorn my home, but I cannot afford the expense,” said 
one of these persons in my hearing. Now, of course, 
she had a quantity of furniture and upholstery in the 
house, and every year she went on buying the same 
miserable shapes and flimsy stuffs and crude colors, 
because she was too careless to look around her and buy 
for the same amount of money articles that would 
commend themselves at once. 
More money is spent injudiciously in house-fur¬ 
nishing, I dare affirm, than in any other depart¬ 
ment of domestic expenditure. There are hundreds 
of humble, unpretending homes scattered up and 
down the land, plain farm-houses among the New 
England hills and the cottages of artisans in the 
great cities, that are, in point of fact, adorned 
