DOING THINGS RIGHT

A rap at the door introduced a neighbor's little son, who handed me my letters. The first one I opened was from Mabel Duncan, a young girl who wanted to know how to set the table.

"I am the youngest girl at home," writes Mabel, "and I have to set the table. This is my work. And I want to do it just right."

"For pity's sake!" said Uncle James, "the child's daft. Anybody can set

a table. It's only putting the dishes on.

"You are a man, James!" I said, dismissing him to his ignorance. shall have the information she asks for."

In the first place, Mabel, you need two table-cloths.

"Mabel

A thick undercloth

of felt or of canton flannel, firmly fastened on the table and pinned at the corners, should go under your white cloth. Then, if you have a pretty centre-piece of linen, daintly embroidered, put that in the middle of your table.'

"Stuff!" ejaculated Uncle James, "and nonsense!"
"Jim, dear," I said, “read your book, and don't interrupt.

to carving the roast you may speak, not before!"

When it comes

"The next thing, Mabel, is to set plates all round the table. On these you will set the soup-plates. Lay knives on the right and forks on the left of every plate; also spoons beside the knives. If you use small butter plates, or larger plates for bread and butter, they should stand at the right of the placeplate. Set a goblet or tumbler at every place. Let the tray with cups and saucers, sugar-bowl, cream-jug, etc., stand before your mother. The principal meat-dish, turkey, roast beef, or whatever it is, may be set before your father. Unless you do not mind crowding up your table, you will set your vegetable dishes on a side table.

"This advice," said the minister's wife, "may help Mabel, but I want her to be told, too, that every family has its own way of serving food, consequently its own way of setting tables. Her mother's way is most likely the best one for her

to follow."

Remarked the little school-ma'am:

"In the education of the period, our young girls should have a training in good housekeeping, and in the proper care of their possessions. Our grandmothers always washed their own teacups, and so do many careful housekeepers still. I confess that it always gives me a pang when I see young women who know a little of nearly everything under the canopy, except the science of housekeeping. Nobody can ever have things done as they ought to be, unless she has gone through a course of doing them herself."

Mothers should insist on making their daughters practical. Some mothers are foolishly afraid that work will ruin their daughters' hands. As if the very prettiest hands in the world were not those which have learned the fine art and beautiful accomplishment of ministering to the dear ones at home.

If mothers will allow their girls to take a little responsibility, and permit

them to keep house turn about, each daughter assuming the reins for a week or a fortnight, they will find themselves lightened of some of their burdens, and the young women will not only thank them in future, but acquit themselves very creditably, for the most part, in the present time.-Margaret Sangster.

LOVE BETTER THAN GOLD

Within my little cottage

Are peace and warmth and light,
And loving welcome waiting
When I come home at night.
The polished kettle's steaming,

The snowy cloth is spread-
And close against my shoulder
There leans a smooth, brown head!
Her eyes are lit with laughter
(They light the world for me)—
"For how much would you sell me?
Now tell me, sir!" cries she,
'Tis then I answer, somehow,
Between a smile and tear:
"Not for all the gold in Klondike!
The gold in Klondike, dear!"

BABY'S NURSE

Few nurses were as devoted as was Dean Swift's. In his infancy, the afterwards famous Jonathan was actually stolen away from his mother. His nurse loved the little boy passionately, and when one of her relatives died, leaving her a legacy which she was called to look after, she went away carrying little Jonathan with her, without so much as "By your leave," to his mother. The child was delicate, his mother feared to have him run the risk of a second voyage and of separation from his nurse, and let the woman keep him three years. The nurse was so careful in teaching the boy that when he returned to Dublin he was able to spell, and when five years old he could read any chapter of the Bible. No mother wants a nurse who would go to such extreme of devotion as stealing the baby; but if baby is to thrive and be happy, his nurse must be a woman who loves babies. She should be a cheerful person; baby is as responsive to a sunny temper as flowers are to sunshine, and gloom depresses him. Don't let your nurse sing doleful ditties to your child. Ask her to teach him bright ballads and tell him happy stories. People can be trained into habits of cheerfulness or the reverse. And it is in infancy that we should begin to develop the capacity for seeing the bright side of life. Of course, in asking so much of your nurse, you must try to do something for her. If she is to be cheerful, things

must be made as pleasant and comfortable for her as possible. When we realize how important child-culture is, in its physical, moral and spiritual aspects, it would look as if every nurse of little children should have a kindergarten course as preparation for her work.

AROUND THE DINNER-TABLE

A merely bounteous table is not always welcome or appetizing. Two or three dishes well prepared and daintily arranged are superior to a dozen carelessly and inartistically put on. Hospitality is often confounded with profusion; and some of us are apt to believe that we play the host ill unless we persuade our guests into eating a great deal. This sort of entertainment is simply material, though it is commoner than we think. The pleasures of the table should appeal to the eye and mind, as well as to the palate. Form should be consulted; grace should be indispensable. The savor of food gains much from its setting and its accompaniments.

Flowers have come to be indispensable to many tables, and they will be ere long, let us hope, indispensable to all. They need not be rare or costly. They are so beautiful, even the plainest and poorest of them, that nothing else can supply their place. A few green leaves, a dozen way-side daisies, a bunch of violets, impart a charm and awake in us the touch of nature. But more than all that is on the table is the spirit brought to it. There can be no high enjoyment of the senses unattended by sympathy. Disquietude of mind at the table. is the precursor of indigestion. They who are invited to dinner and take thereto anxiety and discontent, defraud the host of a proper return for his hospitality. No one has a right to go socially where he does not hope to give. some sort of compensation. The tablecloth should be the flag of truce in the battles of every-day life. We should respect it, and in its presence commend ourselves to peace. The dining-room is about the only place where all the family meet. Make reunions there occasions for giving and gathering food for moral and spiritual strength and refreshment, as well as for the upbuilding of the body-indeed, the latter end cannot well be accomplished unless the former is served. Let your bread be truly blessed as it is broken.

THE PUMPKIN PIE

Ah! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South, come the pilgrims and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old, broken links of affection restored;

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip, and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?-Whittier.

THE "DOLL'S HOSPITAL "

A sign hanging from a second-story window in New York City reads that way, and the physician in charge is a cheery little German woman, wife of a man who made dolls in Saxony. Putting a finger on," and "waxing a face over," are the two most difficult operations in doll surgery. The doctor treats fractures and wounds of every description, and importers who send dolls, damaged in transportation, are very particular that dolly's new head, hand, or hair shall match the rest of her; but children are her most numerous, and also her most exacting patrons--especially in the matter of heads. "The children know their little dolls," says the doll-mender, "and love them very dearly. When they grow old, and scratched, and broken, the little ones can't forget that they were once rosy, and whole, and beautiful. Oh, no! It isn't that my heads are not pretty. They are not compared with the old head, but with the old head as it was when the doll was found in the Christmas stocking. That is the dolly they want again.

"The sign is a great help to me in my business. It brings work from the children. It makes playing with the dolls more real, you see, to have a 'hospital' to take them to. Very fine fun it is for the children, as you would know if you could see them come here, playing all the while that the doll is in a dangerous state, and needs most careful attention. I play at the same thing with them, sometimes; it's good for business, and then it is fun for me, too." Touching incidents occur when little mothers bring children so hopelessly maimed that restoration is impossible, and yet so tenderly loved that is is hard to advise burial in the waste-can.

THE HIGHEST TASK

Great deeds are trumpeted, loud bells are rung,

And men turn round to hear

The high peaks echo to the pæans sung,

And some great victor cheer, and yet great deeds are few.

The mightiest men find opportunities but now and then.

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed.

The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells.

The Book of Life the shining record tells.

God help us mothers all to live aright,

And may our homes all truth and love enfold,
Since life for us no loftier aims can hold

Than leading little children in the light.

In daily life, good-temper will gain more victories than logic, just as one will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.-Dulce Domum.