Fruit cheeses are very pleasant, rich conserves for dessert. They can be made with apricots, strawberries, pineapple, peaches, or gooseberries. The fruit is powdered with sugar and rubbed through a colander; then melted isinglass and thick cream is added, whipped over ice and put into the mould.

The French prepare the most ornamental ices, both water and cream, but they do not equal in richness or flavour those made in New York.

Pancakes and fritters, although English dishes, are very popular in France and very good. Apple fritters with sherry wine and sugar are very comforting things. The French name is beignet de pomme. Thackeray immortalizes them thus:—

In the Almanach de Gourmands there appeared a philosophical treatise on pastry and pastry cooks, probably by the learned Giedeaud de la Reynière himself. Pastry, he says, is to cooking what rhetorical metaphors are to oratory,—life and ornament. A speech without metaphors, a dinner without pastry, are alike insipid; but, in like manner, as few people are eloquent, so few can make perfect pastry. Good pastry-cooks are as rare as good orators.

This writer recommends the art of the rolling-pin to beautiful women as being at once an occupation, a pleasure, and a sure way of recovering embonpoint and freshness. He says: "This is an art which will chase ennui from the saddest. It offers varied amusement and sweet and salutary exercise for the whole body; it restores appetite, strength, and gayety; it gathers around us friends; it tends to advance an art known from the most remote antiquity. Woman! lovely and charming woman, leave the sofas where ennui and hypochondria prey upon the springtime of your life, unite in the varied moulds sugar, jasmine, and roses, and form those delicacies that will be more precious than gold when made by hands so dear to us." What woman could refuse to make a pudding and any number of pies after that?

There seems to be nothing left to eat after all this perilous sweet stuff but a devilled biscuit at ten o'clock.

A slice of pâté de foie gras, olives stuffed with anchovy, broiled bones, anchovy on toast, Welsh rarebit, devilled biscuit, devilled turkey-legs, devilled kidneys, caviare, devilled crabs, soft-shell crabs, shrimp salad, sardines on toast, broiled sausages, etc., are amongst the many appetizers which gourmets seek at ten or twelve o'clock, to take the taste of the sweets out of their mouths, and to prepare the pampered palate perhaps for punch, whiskey, or brandy and soda.

THE FURNISHING OF A COUNTRY HOUSE.

The hostess should, in furnishing her house, provide a number of bath-tubs. The tin ones, shaped like a hat, are very convenient, as are also india-rubber portable baths. If there is not a bath-room belonging to every room, this will enable an Englishman to take his tub as cold as he pleases, or allow the American to take the warmer sponge bath which Americans generally prefer.

The house should also be well supplied with lunch-baskets for picnics and for the railway journey. These can be had for a small sum, and are well fitted up with drinking-cups, knives, forks, spoons, corkscrews, sandwich-boxes, etc. These and a great supply of unbreakable cups for the lawn-tennis ground are very useful.

There should be also any number of painted tin pails, and small pitchers to carry hot water; several services of plain tea things, and Japanese waiters, on which to send tea to the bedrooms; and in every room should be placed a table, thoroughly furnished with writing-materials, and with all the conveniences for writing and sealing a letter.

Shakspeare's bequest to his wife of his second-best bed has passed as a bit of post-mortem ungallantry, which has dimmed his fame as a model husband; but to-day that second-best bed would be a very handsome bequest, not only because it was Shakspeare's, but because it was doubtless a "tester," for which there is a craze. All the old four-posters, which our grandmothers sent to the garret, are on their way back again to the model bedroom. With all our rage for ventilation and fresh air, we no longer fear the bed curtains which a few years ago were supposed to foster disease and death; because the model bedroom can now be furnished with a ventilator for admitting the fresh, and one permitting the egress of the foul air. Each gas bracket is provided with a pipe placed above it, which pierces the wall and through which the product of combustion is carried out of the house. This is a late sanitary improvement in London, and is being introduced in New York.

As for the bed curtains, they are hung on rods with brass rings, no canopy on top, so that the curtains can be shaken and dusted freely. This is a great improvement on the old upholstered top, which recalls Dickens's description of Mrs. Todger's boarding-house, where at the top of the stairs "the odour of many generations of dinners had gathered and had never been dispelled." In like manner the unpleasant feeling that perhaps whole generations of sleepers had breathed into the same upholstery overhead, used to haunt the wakeful, in old English inns, to the murdering of sleep.

There is a growing admiration, unfortunately, for tufted bedsteads. They are in the long run neither clean nor wholesome, and not easily kept free from vermin; but they are undeniably handsome, and recall the imperial beds of state apartments, where kings and queens are supposed to seek that repose which comes so unwillingly to them, but so readily to the plough-boy. These upholstered, tufted, satin-covered bedsteads should be fitted with a canopy, and from this should hang a baldachin and side curtains. Certain very beautiful specimens of this regal arrangement, bought in Italy, are in the Vanderbilt palaces in New York. Opulent purchasers can get copies at the great furnishing-houses, but it is becoming difficult to get the real antiques. Travellers in Brittany find the most wonderful carved bedsteads built into the wall, and are always buying them of the astonished fisher-folk, who have no idea how valuable is their smoke-stained, carved oak.

But as to the making up of the bed. There are nowadays cleanly springs and hair mattresses, in place of the old feather-beds; and as to stiff white bedcovers, pillowslips and shams, false sheets and valenciennes trimmings, monogrammed and ruffled fineries, there is a truce. They were so slippery, so troublesome, and so false withal, that the beds that have known them shall know them no more forever. They had always to be unpinned and unhooked before the sleeper could enter his bed; and they were the torment of the housemaid. They entailed a degree of washing and ironing which was endless, and yet many a young housekeeper thought them indispensable. That idea has gone out completely. The bed now is made up with its fresh linen sheets, its clean blankets and its Marseilles quilt, with square or long pillow as the sleeper fancies, with bolster in plain linen sheath. Then over the whole is thrown a light lace cover lined with Liberty silk. This may be as expensive or as cheap as the owner pleases. Or the spreads may be of satin covered with Chinese embroidery, Turkish Smyrniote, or other rare things, or of the patchwork or decorative art designs now so fashionable. One light and easily aired drapery succeeds the four or five pieces of unmanageable linen. If the bed is a tester and the curtains of silk or chintz, the bed-covering should match in tint. In a very pretty bedroom the walls should be covered with chintz or silk.

The modern highly glazed tile paper for walls and ceiling is an admirable covering, as it refuses to harbour dirt, and the housemaid's brush can keep it sweet and clean. Wall papers are so pretty and so exquisite in design that it seems hardly necessary to do more than mention them. Let us hope the exasperating old rectangular patterns, which have confused so many weary brains and haunted so many a feverish pillow, are gone forever.

The floors should be of plain painted wood, varnished, than which nothing can be cleaner; or perhaps of polished or oiled wood of the natural colour, with parquetried borders. If this is impossible cover with dark-stained mattings, which are as clean and healthful as possible. These may remain down all winter, and rugs may be laid over them at the fireplace and near the bed, sofa, etc. Readily lifted and shaken, rugs have all the comfort of carpets, and none of their disadvantages.

Much is said of the unhealthfulness of gas in bedrooms, but if it does not escape, it is not unhealthful. The prettiest illumination is by candles in the charming new candlesticks in tin and brass, which are as nice as Roman lamps.

On the old bedsteads of Cromwell's time we find a shelf running across the head of the bed, just above the sleeper's head,—placed there for the posset cup. This is now utilized for a safety lamp, for those who indulge in the pernicious practice of reading in bed; but it is even better used as a receptacle for the book, the letter-case, the many little things which an invalid may need, and it saves calling a nurse.

All paint used in a model bedroom should be free from poison. The fireplace should be tiled, and the windows made with a deep beading on the sill. This is a piece of wood like the rest of the frame, which comes up two or three inches in front of the lower part of the window. The object of this is to admit of the lower sash being raised without causing a draught. The room is thus ventilated by the air which filters through the slight aperture between the upper and lower sashes. Above all things have an open fireplace in the bedroom. Abolish stoves from that sacred precinct. Use wood for fuel if possible; if not, the softest of cannel-coal.

Have brass rods placed, on which to hang portières in winter. Portières and curtains may be cheaply made of ingrain carpet embroidered; or of Turkish or Indian stuffs; splendid Delhi pulgaries, a mass of gold silk embroidered, with bits of looking-glass worked in; of velvet; camel's-hair shawls; satin, chintz, or cretonne. Costly thy portières as thy purse can buy; nothing is so pretty and so ornamental.

Glazed chintzes may be hung at the windows, without lining, as the light shines through the flowers, making a good effect. Chenille curtains of soft rich colours are appropriate for the modern bedroom. Madras muslin curtains will do for the windows, but are not heavy enough for portières.

There are hangings made of willow bamboo, which can be looped back, or left hanging, which give a window a furnished look, without intercepting the light. Low wooden tables painted red, tables for writing materials, brackets on the walls for vases, candlesticks, and photograph screens, a long couch with many pillows, a Shaker rocking-chair, a row of hanging book-shelves,—these, with bed and curtains in fresh tints, make a pretty room in a country house.

If possible, people who entertain much should have a suite of bedrooms for guests, so that no one need be turned out of one's room to make way for a guest.

Brass beds are to be recommended as cleanly, handsome, and durable. Many ladies have, however, found fault with them because they show the under mattress, where the clothes are tucked in over the upper one. This can be remedied by making a valance which is finished with a ruffle at the top, which can be fluted, the whole tied on by tapes. Two or three of these in white will be all that a housekeeper needs, and if made of pretty coloured merino to match the room, they will last clean a long time.

Every bedroom should have, if possible, a dressing-room, where the wash-stand, wardrobe, bath-tub, box for boots and shoes, box for soiled clothes, and toilet-table, perhaps, can be kept. In the new sanitary houses in London, the water cistern is placed in view behind glass in these rooms, so that if anything is the matter with the water supply, it can be remedied immediately. However, in old fashioned houses, where dressing-rooms cannot be evoked, screens can be so placed as to conceal the unornamental objects.

A toilet-table should be ornamental and not hidden, with its curtains, pockets, looking-glasses, little bows, shelves for bottles, devices for secret drawers for love letters, and so on. Ivory brushes with the owner's monogram, all sorts of pretty Japanese boxes, and dressing-cases, silver-backed brushes and mirrors, buttonhooks, knives, scissors can be neatly laid out.

A little table for afternoon tea should stand ready, with a tray of Satsuma or old Worcester, with cups and tea equipage, and a copper kettle with alcohol lamp should stand on a bracket on the wall. In the heating of water, a trivet should be attached to the grate, and a little iron kettle might sing forever on the hob. Ornamental ottomans in plush covers, which open and disclose a wood box, should stand by the fireplace. Chameleon glass lamps with king-fisher stems are pretty on the mantel-piece, which can be upholstered to match the bed; and there may be vases in amber, primrose, cream-colour, pale blue, and ruby. No fragrant flowers or growing plants should be allowed in a bedroom. There should be at least one clock in the room, to strike the hour with musical reiteration.

As for baths, the guest should be asked if he prefers hot or cold water, and the hour at which he will have it. If a tin hat-bath, or an india-rubber tub is used, the maid should enter and arrange it in this manner: first lay a rubber cloth on the floor and then place the tub on it. Then bring a large pail of cold water, and a can of hot. Place near the tub a towel-rack hung with fresh towels, both damask and Turkish, and if a full-length Turkish towel be added it will be a great luxury. If the guest be a gentleman, and no man-servant be kept, this should all be arranged the night before, with the exception of course of the hot water, which can be left outside the door at any hour in the morning when it is desired. If it is a stationary tub, of course the matter is a simple one, and depends on the turn of a couple of faucets.

Some visitors are very fussy and dislike to be waited on; to such the option must be given: "Do you prefer to light your own fire, to turn on your bath, to make your own tea, or shall the maid enter at eight o'clock and do it for you?" Such questions are often asked in an English country house. Every facility for doing the work would of course be supplied to the visitor.

The bedroom being nowadays made so very attractive, the guest should stay in it as much as possible, if he or she find that the hostess likes to be alone; in short, absent yourself occasionally. Do your letter-writing and some reading in your room. Most people prefer this freedom and like to be let alone in the morning.

At a country house, gentlemen should be very particular to dress for dinner. If not in the regulation claw-hammer, still with a change of garment. There is a very good garment called a smokee, which is worn by gentlemen in the summer, a sort of light jacket of black cloth, which goes well with either black or white cravat; but with all the laisser aller of a country visit, inattention to the proprieties of dress is not included.

A guest must go provided with a lawn-tennis costume, if he plays that noble game which has become the great consolation of our rising generation. No doubt the hostess blesses the invention of this great time killer, as she sees her men and maidens trooping out to the ground, under the trees. This suggests the subject of out-of-door refreshment, the claret cup, the champagne cup, the shandy gaff, the fresh cider, and the thousand and one throat-coolers, for which our American genius seems to have been inspired to meet the drain of a very dry climate, and which we shall consider elsewhere.

ENTERTAINING IN A COUNTRY HOUSE.

Poets have been in the habit of praising a country life since the days of Homer, but Americans have not as a people appreciated its joys. As soon as a countryman was able to do it, he moved to the largest city near him, presumably New York, or perhaps Paris. The condition of opulence, much desired by those who had been bred in poverty, suggested at once the greater convenience of a town life, and the busy work-a-day world, to which most Americans are born, necessitates the nearness to Wall Street, to banks, to people, and to the town.

City people were content formerly to give their children six weeks of country air, and old New Yorkers did not move out of the then small city, even in the hot months. The idea of going to the country to live for pleasure, to find in it a place in which to spend one's money and to entertain, has been, to the average American mind, a thing of recent growth. Perhaps our climate has much to do with this. People bred in the country feared to meet that long cold winter of the North, which even to the well-to-do was filled with suffering. Who does not remember the ice in the pitcher of a morning, which must be broken before even faces were washed?

Therefore the furnace-heated city house, the companionship, the bustle, the stir, and convenience of a city has been, naturally enough, preferred to the loneliness of the country. As Hawthorne once said, Americans were not yet sufficiently civilized to live in the country. When he went to England, and saw a different order of things, he understood why.

England, a small place with two thousand years of civilization, with admirable roads, with landed estates, with a mild winter, with a taste for sport, with dogs, horses, and well-trained servants, was a very different place.

It may be years before we make our country life as agreeable as it is in England. We have to conquer climate first. But the love of country life is growing in America. Those so fortunate as to be able to live in a climate like that of southern California can certainly quote Horace with sympathy. Those who live so near to a great city as to command at once city conveniences and country air and freedom, are amongst the fortunate of the earth. And to hundreds, thousands of such, in our delightfully prosperous new country, the art of entertaining in a country house assumes a new interest.

No better model for a hostess can be found than an Englishwoman. There is, when she receives her guests, a quiet cordiality, a sense of pleasurable expectancy, an inbred ease, grace, suavity, composure, and respect for her visitors, which seems to come naturally to a well-bred Englishwoman; that is to say, to the best types of the highest class. To be sure they have had vast experience in the art of entertaining; they have learned this useful accomplishment from a long line of well-trained predecessors. They have no domestic cares to worry them. At the head of her own house, an Englishwoman is as near perfection as a human being can be.

There is the great advantage of the English climate, to begin with. It is less exciting than ours. Nervous women are there almost unknown. Their ability to take exercise, the moist and soft air they breathe, their good appetite and healthy digestion give English women a physical condition almost always denied to an American.

Our climate drives us on by invisible whips; we breathe oxygen more intoxicating than champagne. The great servant question bothers us from the cradle to the grave; it has never entered into an English woman's scheme of annoyance, so that in an English hostess there is a total absence of fussiness.

English women spend the greater part of the year in travelling, or at home in the country. Town life is with them a matter of six weeks or three months at the most. They are fond of nature, of walking, of riding; they share with the men a more vigorous physique than is given to any other race. A French or Italian woman dreads a long walk, the companionship of a dozen dogs, the yachting and the race course, the hunting-field and the lawn tennis pursued with indefatigable vigilance; but the fair English girl, with her blushing cheeks, her dog, her pony, and her hands full of wild flowers, is a character worth crossing the ocean to see. She is the product of the highest civilization, and as such is still near the divine model which nature furnishes. She has the underlying charm of simplicity, she is the very rose of perfect womanhood. She may seem shy, awkward, and reserved, but what the world calls pride or coldness may turn out to be hidden virtue, or reserve, or modesty.

English home education is a seminary of infinite importance; a girl learns to control her speech, to be always calm and well-bred. She has been toned down from her youth. She has been carefully taught to respect the duties of her high position; she has this advantage to counterbalance the disadvantage which we freeborn citizens think may come with an overpride of birth,—she has learned the motto noblesse oblige. The English fireside is a beacon light forever to the soldier in the Crimea, to the colonist in Australia, to the grave official in India, to the missionary in the South Seas, to the English boy wherever he may be. It sustains and ennobles the English woman at home and abroad.

As a hostess, the English woman is sure to mould her house to look like home. She has soft low couches for those who like them, high-backed tall chairs for the tall, low chairs for the lowly. She has her bookcases and pretty china scattered everywhere, she has work-baskets and writing-tables and flowers, particularly wild ones, which look as if she had tossed them in the vases herself. Her house looks cheerful and cultivated.

I use the word advisedly, for all taste must be cultivated. A state apartment in an old English house can be inexpressibly dreary. High ceilings, stiff old girandoles, pictures of ancestors, miles of mirrors, and the Laocoön or other specimens of Grecian art, which no one cares for except in the Vatican, and the ceramic and historical horrors of some old collector, who had no taste,—are enough to frighten a visitor. But when a young or an experienced English hostess has smiled on such a house, there will be some delightful lumber strewn around, no end of pretty brackets and baskets and curtains and screens, and couches piled high with cushions; and then the quaint carvings, the rather affected niches, the mantelpiece nearly up to the ceiling, as in Hogarth's picture,—all these become humanized by her touch. The spirit of a hostess should aim at the combination of use and beauty. Some finer spirits command both, as Brunelleschi hung the dome at Florence high in air, and made a thing of beauty, which is a joy forever, but did not forget to build under it a convenient church as well. As for the bedrooms in an English country house, they transcend description, they are the very apotheosis of comfort.

The dinners are excellent, the breakfast and lunch comfortable, informal, and easy, the horses are at your disposal, the lawn and garden are yours for a stroll, the chapel lies near at hand, where you can study architecture and ancient brass. There are pleasant people in the house, you are let alone, you are not being entertained. That most dreadful of sensations, that somebody has you on his mind, and must show you photographs and lift off your ennui is absent; you seem to be in Paradise.

English people will tell you that house parties are dull,—not that all are, but some are. No doubt the jaded senses lose the power of being pleased. A visit to an English house, to an American who brings with her a fresh sense of enjoyment, and who remembers the limitations of a new country, one who loves antiquity, history, old pictures, and all that time can do, one who is hungry for Old World refinements, to such an one a visit to an English country house is delightful. To a worn-out English set whose business it has been for a quarter of a century to go from one house to another, no doubt it is dull. Some unusual distraction is craved.

"To relieve the monotony and silence and the dull, depressing cloud which sometimes settles on the most admirably arranged English dinner-party, even an American savage would be welcomed," says a modern novel-writer. How much more welcome then is a pretty young woman who, with a true enthusiasm and a wild liberty, has found her opportunity and uses it, plays the banjo, tells fortunes by the hand, has no fear of rank, is in her set a glacier of freshness with a heart of fire, like Roman punch.

How much more gladly is a young American woman welcomed, in such a house, and how soon her head is turned. She is popular until she carries off the eldest son, and then she is severely criticised, and by her spoiled caprices becomes a heroine for Ouida to rejoice in, and the fond of a society novel.

But the glory is departing from many a stately English country house. Fortune is failing them; they are, many of them, to rent. Rich Americans are buying their old pictures. The Gainsboroughs, the Joshua Reynoldses, the Rembrandts, which have been the pride of English country houses, are coming down, charmed by the silver music of the almighty dollar; the old fairy tale is coming true,—even the furniture dances.

We have the money and we have the vivacity, according to even our severest critics; we have now to cultivate the repose of an English hostess, if we would make our country houses as agreeable as she does.

We cannot improvise the antiquity, or the old chapel, or the brasses; we cannot make our roads as fine as those which enable an English house party to drive sixteen miles to a dinner; in fact we must admit that they have been nine hundred years making a lawn even. But we must try to do things our own way, and use our own advantages so that we can make our guests comfortable.

The American autumn is the most glorious of seasons for entertaining in a country house. Nature hangs our hillsides then with a tapestry that has no equal even at Windsor. The weather, that article which in America is so apt to be good that if it is bad we apologize for it, is more than apt to be good in October, and makes the duties of a hostess easy then, for Nature helps to entertain.

It is to be feared that we have not yet learned to be guests. Trusting to that boundless American hospitality which has been apt to say, "Come when you please and stay as long as you can," we decline an invitation for the 6th, saying we can come on the 9th. This cannot be done when people begin to give house-parties. We must go on the 6th or not at all.

We should also define the limits of a visit, as in England; one is asked on Wednesday to arrive at five, to leave at eleven on Saturday. Then one does not overstay one's welcome. Host and hostess and guest must thoroughly understand one another on this point, and then punctuality is the only thing to be considered.

The opulent, who have butler, footman, and French cooks, need read no further in this chapter, the remainder of which will be directed to that larger class who have neither, and who have to help themselves. No lady should attempt to entertain in the country who has not a good cook, and one or two attendant maids who can wait well and perform other duties about the house. With these three and with a good deal of knowledge herself, a hostess can make a country house attractive.

The dining-room should be the most agreeable room in the house, shaded in the morning and cool in the afternoon,—a large room with a hard-wood floor and mats, if possible, as these are clean and cool.

Carving should be done by one of the servants at a side table. There is nothing more depressing on a warm evening than a smoking joint before one's plate. A light soup only should be served, leaving the more substantial varieties for cold weather.

Nowadays the china and glass are so very pretty, and so very cheap, that they can be bought and used and left in the house all winter without much risk. If people are living in the country all winter a different style of furnishing, and a different style of entertaining is no doubt in order.

It is well to have very easy laws about breakfast, and allow a guest to descend when he wishes. If possible give your guest an opportunity to breakfast in his room. So many people nowadays want simply a cup of tea, and to wait until noon before eating a heavy meal; so many desire to eat steaks, chops, toast, eggs, hot cakes, and coffee at nine o'clock, that it is difficult for a hostess to know what to do. Her best plan, perhaps, is to have an elastic hour, and let her people come down when they feel like it. In England the maid enters the bedroom with tea, excellent black tea, a toasted muffin, and two boiled eggs at eight o'clock, a pitcher of hot water for the wash-stand, and a bath. No one is obliged to appear until luncheon, nor even then if indisposed so to do. Dinner at whatever hour is a formal meal, and every one should come freshly dressed and in good form, as the English say.

The Arab law of hospitality should be printed over every lintel in a country house: "Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest;" "He who tastes my salt is sacred; neither I nor my household shall attack him, nor shall one word be said against him. Bring corn, wine, and fruit for the passing stranger. Give the one who departs from thy tents the swiftest horse. Let him who would go from thee take the fleet dromedary, reserve the lame one for thyself." If these momentous hints were carried out in America, and if these children of the desert, with their grave faces, composed manners, and noble creed, could be literally obeyed, we fear country-house visiting would become almost too popular.

But if we cannot give them the fleet dromedary, we can drive them to the fast train, which is much better than any dromedary. We can make them comfortable, and enable them to do as they like. Unless we can do that, we should not invite any one.

Unless a guest has been rude, it is the worst taste to criticise him. He has come at your request. He has entered your house as an altar of safety, an ark of refuge. He has laid his armour down. Your kind welcome has unlocked his reserve. He has spoken freely, and felt that he was in the presence of friends. If in this careless hour you have discovered his weak spot, be careful how you attack it. The intimate unreserve of a guest should be respected.

And upon the guest an equal, nay, a superior conscientiousness should rest, as to any revelation of the secrets he may have found out while he was a visitor. No person should go from house to house bearing tales. We do not go to our friend's house to find the skeleton in the closet. No criticisms of the weaknesses or eccentricities of any member of the family should ever be heard from the lips of a guest. "Whose bread I have eaten, he is henceforth my brother," is another Arab proverb.

Speak well always of your entertainers, but speak little of their domestic arrangements. Do not violate the sanctity of the fireside, or wrong the shelter of the roof-tree which has lent you its protection for even a night.

The decorations for a country ballroom, in a rural neighbourhood, have called forth many an unknown genius in that art which has become the well-known profession of interior decoration. The favourite place in Lenox, and at many a summer resort, has been the large floor of a new barn. Before the equine tenants begin to champ their oats, the youths and maids assume the right to trip the light fantastic toe on the well-laid hard floor. The ornamentations at such a ball at Lenox were candles put in pine shields, with tin holders, and decorations of corn and wheat sheaves, tied with scarlet ribbons, surrounding pumpkins which were laid in improvised brackets, hastily cut out of pine, with hatchets, by the young men. Magnificent autumn leaves were arranged with ferns as garlands, and many were the devices for putting candles and kerosene lamps behind these so as to give almost the effect of stained glass, without causing a general conflagration.

The effect of a pumpkin surrounded by autumn leaves recalls the Gardens of the Hesperides. No apple like those golden apples which we call pumpkins was ever seen there. To be sure they are rather large to throw to a goddess, and might bowl her down, but they look very handsome when tranquilly reposing.

A sort of Druidical procession might be improvised to help along this ball, and the hostess would amuse her company for a week with the preparations.

First, get a negro fiddler to head it, dressed like Browning's Pied Piper in gay colours, and playing his fiddle. Then have a procession of children, dressed in gay costumes; following them, "two milk-white oxen garlanded" with wreaths of flowers and ribbons, driven by a boy in Swiss costume; then a goat-cart with the baby driving two goats, also garlanded; next a lovely Alderney cow, also decorated, accompanied by a milkmaid, carrying a milking-stool; then another long line of children, followed by the youths and maids, bearing the decorations for the ballroom. Let all these parade the village street and wind up at the ballroom, where the cow can be milked, and a surprise of ice cream and cake given to the children. This is a Sunday-school picnic and a ball decoration, all in one, and the country lady who can give it will have earned the gratitude of neighbours and friends. It has been done.

In the spring the decorations of a ballroom might be early wild flowers and the delicate ground-pine, far more beautiful than smilax, and also ferns, the treasures of the nearest wood.

Wild flowers, ferns, and grasses, the ground-pine, the checkerberry, and the partridge berry make the most exquisite garlands, and it is only of late—when a few great geniuses have discovered that the field daisy is the prettiest of flowers, that the best beauty is that which is at our hands wherever we are, that the greatest rarity is the grass in the meadow—that we have reached the true meaning of interior decoration.

Helen Hunt, in one of her prettiest papers, describes the beauty of kinnikinick, a lovely vine which grows all over Colorado. Although we have not that, we can even in winter find the hemlock boughs, the mistletoe, the holly, for our decorations. Of course, hot-house flowers and smilax, if they can be obtained, are very beautiful and desirable, but they are not within the reach of every purse, or of every country house.

Sheaves of wheat, tied with fine ribbons and placed at intervals around a room, can be made to have the beauty of an armorial bearing. These, alternating with banners and hemlock boughs, are very effective. All these forms which Nature gives us have suggested the Corinthian capital, the Ionic pillar, the most graceful of Greek carvings. The acanthus leaf was the inspiration of the architect who built the Acropolis.

Vine leaves, especially after they begin to turn, are capable of infinite suggestion, and we all remember the recent worship of the sunflower. Hop vines and clematis, especially after the last has gone to seed, remain long as ornaments.

As for the refreshments to be served,—the oyster stew, the ice cream, the good home-made cake, coffee, and tea are within the reach of every country housekeeper, and are in their way unrivalled. Of course, if she wishes she can add chicken salad, boned turkey, pâté de foie gras, and punch, hot or cold.

If it is in winter, the coachmen outside must not be forgotten. Some hot coffee and oysters should be sent to these patient sufferers, for our coachmen are not dressed as are the Russians, in fur from head to foot. If possible, there should be a good fire in the kitchen, to which these attendants on our pleasure could be admitted to thaw out.

A PICNIC.

Appetites flourish in the free air of hills and meadows, and after drinking in the ozone of the sea, one feels like drinking something else. There is a very good story of a reverend bishop who with a friend went a-fishing, like Peter, and being very thirsty essayed to draw the cork of a claret bottle. In his zeal he struck his bottle against a stone, and the claret oozed out to refresh the thirsty earth, instead of that precious porcelain of human clay of which the bishop was made. His remark to his friend was, "James, you are a layman, why don't you say something?"

Now to avoid having our layman or our reverend wish to say something, let us try to suggest what they should eat and what they should drink.

There are many kinds of picnics,—fashionable ones at Newport and other watering-places, where the French waiters of the period are told to get up a repast as if at the Casino; there are clam-bakes which are ideal, and there are picnics at Lenox and at Sharon, where the hotel keeper will help to fill the baskets.

But the real picnic, which calls for talent and executive ability, should emanate from some country house, where two or three other country houses co-operate and help. Then what jolly drives in the brakes, what queer old family horses and antediluvian wagons, what noble dog-carts, and what prim pony phaetons can join in the procession. The day should be fine, and the place selected a hillside with trees, commanding a fine view. This is at least desirable. The necessity for a short walk, a short scramble after leaving the horses, should not be disregarded.

The night before the picnic, which presumably starts early, the lady of the house should see to it that a boiled ham of perfect flavour is in readiness, and she may flank it with a boiled tongue, four roasted chickens, a game pie, and any amount of stale bread to cut into sandwiches.

Now a sandwich can be at once the best and the worst thing in the world, but to make it the best the bread should be cut very thin, the butter, which must be as fresh as a cowslip, should be spread with deft fingers, then a slice of ham as thin as a wafer with not too much fat must be laid between, with a soupçon of mustard. The prepared ham which comes in cans is excellent for making sandwiches. Cheese sandwiches, substituting a thin slice of American fresh cheese for the ham, are delicious, and some rollicking good-livers toast the cheese.

Tongue, cold beef, and even cold sausages make excellent varieties of sandwich. To prevent their becoming the "sand which is under your feet" cover them over night with a damp napkin.

Chicken can be eaten for itself alone, but it should be cut into very convenient fragments, judiciously salted and wrapped in a very white napkin.

The game or veal pie must be in a strong earthen dish, and having been baked the day before, its pieces will have amalgamated with the crust, and it will cut into easily handled slices.

All must be packed in luncheon baskets with little twisted cornucopias holding pepper and salt, hard-boiled eggs, the patty by itself, croquettes, if they happen to be made, cold fried oysters, excellent if in batter and well-drained after cooking; no article must be allowed to touch another.

If cake and pastry be taken, each should have a separate basket. Fruit also should be carefully packed by itself, for if food gets mixed and mussy, even a mountain appetite will shun it.

A bottle of olives is a welcome addition, and pickles and other relishes may be included. Sardines are also in order.

Now what to drink? Cold tea and iced coffee prepared the night before, the cream and sugar put in just before starting, should always be provided. They are capital things to climb on, to knit up the "ravelled sleeve of care," and if somewhat exciting to the nerves, will be found the best thirst-quenchers.

These beverages should be carefully bottled and firmly corked,—and don't forget the corkscrew. Plenty of tin cups, or those strong glass beer-mugs which you can throw across the room without breaking, should also be taken.

Claret is the favourite wine for picnics, as being light and refreshing. Ginger ale is excellent and cheap and compact. "Champagne," says Walter Besant in his novel "By Celia's Arbour" is a wine as Catholic as the Athanasian Creed, because it goes well with chicken and with the more elaborate pâté de foie gras.

Some men prefer sherry with their lunch, some take beer. If you have room and a plentiful cellar, take all these things. But tea and coffee and ginger ale will do for any one, anywhere.

It has been suggested by those who have suffered losses from mischievous friends, that a composite basket containing everything should be put in each carriage, but this is refining the matter.

Arrived at the picnic-ground, the whole force should be employed by the hostess as an amiable body of waiters. The ladies should set the tables, and the men bring water from the spring. The less ceremony the better.

Things have not been served in order, they never are at a picnic, and the cunning hostess now produces some claret cup. She has made it herself since they reached the top of the mountain. Two bottles of claret to one of soda water, two lemons, a glass of sherry, a cucumber sliced in to give it the most perfect flavour, plenty of sugar and ice; and where had she hidden that immense pitcher, a regular brown toby, in which she has brewed it?

"I know," said an enfant terrible; "I saw her hiding it under the back seat."

There it is, filled with claret cup, the most refreshing drink for a warm afternoon. Various young persons of opposite sexes, who have been looking at each other more than at the game pie, now prepare to disappear in the neighbouring paths, under a pretence but feebly made of plucking blackberries,—artless dissemblers!

Mamma shouts, "Mary, Caroline, Jane, Tom, Harry, be back before five, for we must start for home." May she get them, even at half-past six. From a group of peasants over a bunch of sticks in the Black Forest, to a queen who delighted to picnic in Fontainebleau, these al fresco entertainments are ever delicious. We cannot put our ears too close to the confessional of Nature. She has always a new secret to tell us, and from the most artificial society to that which is primitive and rustic, they always carry the same charm. It is the Antæus trying to get back to Mother Earth, who strengthens him.

In packing a lunch for a fisherman, or a hunter, the hostess often has to explain that brevity is the soul of wit. She must often compress a few eatables into the side pocket, and the bottle of claret into the fishing-basket. If not, she can palm off on the man one of those tin cases which poor little boys carry to school, which look like books and have suggestive titles, such as "Essays of Bacon," "Crabbe's Tales," or "News from Turkey," on the back. If the fisherman will take one of these his sandwiches will arrive in better order.

The Western hunter takes a few beans and some slices of pork, some say in his hat, when he goes off on the warpath. The modern hunter or fisher, if he drive to the meet or the burn, can be trusted with an orthodox lunch-basket, which should hold cold tea, cold game-pie, a few olives, and a bit of cheese, and a large reserve of sandwiches. When we grow more celestial, when we achieve the physical theory of another life, we may know how to concentrate good eating in a more portable form than that of the sandwich, but we do not know it yet.

Take an egg sandwich,—hard-boiled eggs chopped, and laid between the bread and butter. Can anything be more like the sonnet?—complete in only fourteen lines, and yet perfection! Only indefinite chicken, wheaten flour, the milk of the cow, all that goes to make up our daily food in one little compact rectangle! Egg sandwich! It is immense in its concentration.

Some people like to take salads and apple pies to picnics. There are great moral objections to thus exposing these two delicacies to the rough experiences of a picnic. A salad, however well dressed, is an oily and slippery enjoyment. Like all great joys, it is apt to escape us, especially in a lunch basket. Apple pie, most delicate of pasties, will exude, and you are apt to find the crust on the top of the basket, and the apple in the bottom of the carriage.

If you will take salad, and will not be taught by experience, make a perfect jardinière of all the cold vegetables, green peas, beans, and cauliflower, green peppers, cucumbers, and cold potatoes, and take this mixture dry to the picnic. Have your mayonnaise in a bottle, and dress the salad with it after sitting down, on a very slippery, ferny rock, at the table. Truth compels the historian to observe, that this is delicious with the ham, and you will not mind in the least, until the next day, the large grease-spot on the side breadth of your gown.

As for the apple pie, that is taken at the risk of the owner. It had better be left at home for tea.

Of course, pâté de foie gras, sandwiches, boned turkey, jellied tongue, the various cold birds, as partridges, quails, pheasant, and chicken, and raw oysters, can be taken to a very elaborate picnic near a large town. Salmon dressed with green sauce, lobster salad, every kind of salad, is in order if you can only get it there, and "caviare to the general." Cold terrapin is not to be despised; eaten on a bit of bread it is an excellent dainty, and so is the cold fried oyster.

Public picnics, like Sunday-school picnics, fed with ice cream and strawberries; or the clam bake, a unique and enjoyable affair by the sea, are in the hands of experts, and need no description here. The French people picnic every day in the Bois de Boulogne, the woods of Versailles, and even on their asphalt, eating out of doors when they can. It is a very strange thing that we do not improve our fine climate by eating our dinners and breakfasts with the full draught of an unrivalled ozone.

PASTIMES OF LADIES.