A DINNER PARTY

When you give a dinner party it is best not to vary it much from your regular style of every-day serving. A greater quantity you must have, of course, and perhaps a greater variety, and you may desire to put on a few extra fancy touches, but do not attempt anything magnificent in the way of style unless you are accustomed to live in a stylish manner. If your usual dinner consists of but three courses, it will be well on this occasion to add a fourth, and follow the soup with fish, and the dessert of pies, puddings, creams, etc., should be followed by

WASHINGTON, D. C.

fruits, nuts and raisins. And, beyond this, it is not necessary to turn out of your usual course. Your own servants and the extra ones you hire know what to do with such a dinner as this. you see that everything is going properly, and your mind is at ease so that you can take the leading part in entertaining your guests. And if everything is prepared in the best way, and nicely served, your guests will be much better pleased than if you had attempted

a grand entertainment. If you are determined to give dinners so out of proportion to the ordinary style of your household, make up your mind to do it properly, and to pay for it. Hire a fashionable caterer and give him carte blanche. He will supply cooks, waiters, and the best of everything. You can preside at your table with a mind at ease, and a serene countenance, and your dinner will be a great success-if you think it worth the price.-Frank R. and Marian Stockton.

SELF-DENIAL

Self-denial is essential to domestic happiness; and as each member of the family yields to the other, and consults the other's comforts, it comes to pass that the freedom and comfort of all are secured. If, on the other hand, each member is selfish and self-willed, determined to have his own way and to gratify his own liking, there must be collisions and quarrels and unhappiness. Hence it appears that by mutual concession comfort and liberty are secured, while by unyielding obstinacy both are lost.-Dulce Domum.

THE WASHERWOMAN'S SONG

In a very humble cot,

In a rather quiet spot,

In the suds and in the soap,
Worked a woman full of hope;
Working, singing, all alone,
In a sort of undertone,

"With a Saviour for a friend,
He will keep me to the end."
Sometimes happening along
I had heard the semi-song,

And I often used to smile,
More in sympathy than guile,
But I never said a word,
In regard to what I heard;

As she sang about her Friend Who would keep her to the end. Not in sorrow nor in glee Working all day long was she,

As her children, three or four, Played around her on the floor; But in monotones the song She was humming all day long, "With a Saviour for a friend, He will keep me to the end."

I have seen her rub and rub,
On the washboard in the tub,
While the baby, sopped in suds,
Rolled and tumbled in the duds,
Or was paddling in the pools,
With old scissors stuck in spools,
She still humming of her Friend
Who would keep her to the end.
Human hopes and human creeds
Have their root in human needs,
And I would not wish to strip
From that washerwoman's lip,
Any song that she can sing,
Any hope that songs can bring.
For the woman has a Friend
That will keep her to the end.

THE HAPPY NAIL-MAKER

A laborious nail-maker worked all day at his forge, and under his strong, quick blows thousands of sparks arose around him and filled his workshop. The son of his rich neighbor, Mr. Von Berg, came to see him almost every day, and would watch him with delight for hours. One day the busy nail-maker said to him in joke: “Would you not like to make some nails? Just try, my young master, if it be only to pass time away. It may be useful to you some day."

The young gentleman, having nothing else to do, consented. He placed himself before the anvil, and, laughing as he sat down, began to hammer away right merrily. Before very long he was able to finish off a good shoenail.

Some years after, the misfortunes of war deprived this young man of all his wealth, and forced him to emigrate to a foreign country. Far from his native land, stripped of all resources, he halted at a large village, where the majority of the people were shoemakers. He ascertained that they expended yearly a large sum of money in the purchase of shoe-nails from a neighboring town, and that often they could not obtain the quantity they needed, because so many were required for the shoes of the army, most of which were made in that district. Von Berg, who already saw himself threatened with starvation, remembered that he knew perfectly the art of making shoe-nails. He offered to supply the shoemakers of the village with as large a quantity of nails as they required, if they would only establish a workshop, and to this they cheerfully consented. He began to work with enthusiasm, and soon found himself in easy circumstances. "It is always good," he used often to say to himself, "to learn something, if it be only to make a shoe-nail. There are positions in life where head-learning cannot be called into play, and where want may threaten even those who have been wealthy. It is well to provide for such exigencies by having some useful trade at our finger ends."

THE JOY OF SERVICE

He who carries about a face that says, "Can I serve you?" who seems to say to the passer-by, "If you have a question to ask, here is one who acknowledges your claim to a kind and helpful answer "; who maintains an aspect of sincere sympathy with everybody's pleasures and sorrows, triumphs or failures; who listens to the tedious tale that unloads some breaking heart: who shakes hands as if he meant, and who really does mean, "God bless you!" who gives without hope or wish for any return; who sees no alien behind ignorance, or crime, or color, or race, but always a fellow-creature, and limits his charity by no sect and no condition; who would rather lose his dinner than the chance of rendering a small but needed kindness, and counts no day happy in which he has not blessed some fellow-creature with an unexpected and unclaimed service; who quenches wrath by his meekness and banishes irritation