fine muslin is to be darned, it is better to use ravellings of the same instead of thread.

Should you have a rent in a dress to repair, use ravellings of the same material; they are easily to be obtained from the turning in of the top of the skirt, if you have no pieces; but generally some are left by the dressmaker, and should be kept for such accidents. In mending by pieceing, be careful that you do it very neatly, match stripes or patterns on the material artfully, and you will have the triumph of preventing the defacement of your dress.

Learn how to make a bow of ribbon, and how to trim a bonnet. Young ladies of small means, who are ingenious and tasteful, often present a better appearance by making things for themselves, than those who, without taste or neatness, spend large sums at the milliner's. I advise you to try and make your own dresses. In order to do this, unpick an old dress that fits you; lay the several portions of the body on coarse brown paper, with the turnings turned in; trace the pattern carefully in ink; then draw a line round it-the spaces to be left for turning in-and cut it out. Pin these patterns on your material, and cut out the dress, taking care that you do not get two fronts for the same side, if there be a right and wrong surface to it. To prevent the possibility of this mistake, it is well to fold the material, and cut both at once. The same may be said with regard to the side bodies. Greater skill is required to put the skirt into a band than in making a body, in order that it may hang gracefully; but as fashions change continually, we can only advise you to get a good pattern to copy from, and care and patience will insure your success. If your means render it unnecessary or not expedient for you to make your own dresses, you will find it a pleasant power to be able to make up the cotton dress you destine for some poor neighbour whose want of time for needlework will render her as much obliged for the labour bestowed on it as for the gift itself.

Making clothes for poor children is another mode of active charity; for these the article on "Doll Dressing" will furnish you with patterns.

It is not likely in the present day that your labours will be required for shirt-making for your male relatives; they generally prefer buying their linen ready made. But every woman ought to know how to put one together, as she cannot give a more acceptable present to her poor neighbours if she is rich; and no one can foresee how necessary the future may render such knowledge to herself. We will, therefore, tell you how a shirt is put together; supposing you can hem, sew, stitch, and gather.

Cut out your material by an old shirt of a good pattern. Stitch the wristbands and collar very neatly, taking two threads back and two forward on the needle. To miss a single thread would spoil the beauty of your work. The width to be left between the edge and the stitching is a matter of taste and fashion: for a poor man leave it wide, as, when worn, it will repair better. Then begin with the sleeves. They should be hemmed at the bottom on each side, about a finger's length up, then neatly gathered, to be put into the wristband. Take care to gather on a thread, taking two stitches and leaving four, as already said. Then put on the wristband.

Baste on the linings for the shoulder, called shoulder-pieces; then sew the seams, leaving a hem-fell, which is made thus: the raw edge is first turned down, and then turned back, like a hem wrong side outwards. When you have sewed the seam, this fell is neatly hemmed down; but the "sides" left at the bottom of the shirt should be hemmed first, so that no knots or rough corners may appear.

The length left open for the arm-holes, sides, and bosom, is usually yard and a nail. The bosom sets better if sloped a very little before it is put into the collar.

The neck gussets are usually stitched like the wristbands, and sewed into the shoulder, over and over; but it is better to leave the gusset with the edge unturned, and to stitch the shirt upon it in two rows of stitching. Only one thread should be left between the stitching and the gusset, where the shirt joins it. The inside half is sewed to the shoulder lining very strongly, on the wrong side, and fitted to the outside half of the gusset. When the neck is gathered, gather the inside and outside halves of the gusset separately.

The side gussets look better and are made stronger by being stitched also. The sleeves should be put in before the collar is put on.

The space into which a sleeve is gathered at the arm-hole should be exactly the same as the length of the wristband round. The length of the shoulder is sometimes yard, and sometimes and a nail, as may best fit the wearer. Your pattern will guide you to this, as also with regard to your shirt front.

Button-holes require great skill in making. They should be neatly overcast about three or four threads deep, broad work in them looking very coarse and clumsy; little bars of cotton should be formed across the corners, and neatly overcast, just the depth of the edge. In working button-holes, take care to throw the thread forward before catching up the loop on the needle. Gather with strong thread, waxed with white wax.

If you can make a shirt well, you can easily manufacture all female under garments; you will require only patterns for cutting out.

Longcloth and linen should be scalded before you work on them, in order to render them soft enough for the needle to pass through easily; but should you be unable, from haste or other circumstances, to have this done, take a cake of soap, and rub it on the part you are going to sew or hem; you will find your needle then slip along with the greatest ease, and will run no risk of breaking it.

We advise young ladies who have the care of their own linen, and perhaps have their own allowance for dress, to take a few hours on one fixed day, weekly, to look over their clothes and do any small repairs that may be wanted. They will find the truth of the wise old adage, "A stitch in time saves nine," and will make their linen last as long again as it would otherwise do.

Gloves should be mended on the right side, and no hole be suffered to remain a day. White gloves may be cleaned by rubbing them with milk and curd soap on a piece of flannel. Light-coloured gloves may be cleaned with

spirits of turpentine, but they must be exposed to the air a long time afterwards, to get rid of the unpleasant smell of the spirit.

Habits of neatness should be carefully cultivated. Dresses should never be put away dusty, or thrown down in a heap. Silk dresses should be wiped occasionally with a clean piece of soft flannel. Wax spots from candles may be removed from silk or satin by laying a piece of blotting-paper over the place, and holding a hot iron above it. The wax will be drawn by the heat into the paper, which, when greasy, may be removed, and another piece substituted till the whole stain is removed. Grease may be taken out of woollen dresses in the same manner.

Our young readers may be assured that the little cares bestowed on keeping their garments neat, clean, and whole, will give to their appearance that air of freshness which is in itself a charm, and prove the truest economy. Moreover, the power of using the needle skilfully will give good manipulation for other and more artistic employments, and can never be aught but a blessing to the English girl.

COLOURED LIGHTS.

In acting charades, and above all in tableaux, coloured light is often a great improvement; indeed, sometimes it is indispensable. Therefore, although we advise our young lady readers to have nothing to do with the manufacture themselves, we give a few recipes for making it. We have no doubt some of the elder brother actors, or friends, will be willing to try our directions for them.

mony.

TO PREPARE A BRILLIANT RED FIRE.

Weigh 5 oz. of dry nitrate of strontia, and 1 oz. of finely powdered sulphur, 5 drams of chlorate of potash, and 4 drams of sulphuret of antiPowder the sulphuret of antimony and the chlorate of potash separately in a mortar, and mix them on paper; after which add them to the other ingredients, previously powdered and mixed. When you wish to use it, put a portion of the powder in a tin pan resembling a cheese-toaster, mix with it a small quantity of spirits of wine, light the mixture, and it will shed a rich crimson hue. When the fire burns dimly, a very small quantity of finely powdered charcoal or lamp black will revive it.

PURPLE FIRE.

Purple light is produced by dissolving chloride of lithium in spirits of wine. When it is lighted it will burn with a purple flame.

WHITISH BLUE FIRE.

Take of nitrate of baryta twenty-seven parts troy weight; of sulphur, thirteen; of chloride of potassa, five; of realgar, two; and of charcoal, there

parts. Mix them thoroughly together, and when lighted they will emit a whitish blue light, accompanied by much smoke. This light is used for fairy

scenes.

YELLOW LIGHT.

Mix some common salt with spirits of wine in a metal cup, and set it upon a wire frame over a spirit lamp. When the cup becomes heated, the other lights on the stage should be extinguished, and that of the spirit lamp shaded in some way. The result will be that the whole group, faces, dresses, &c., will be of a strong yellow tint. This is used if you act Spenser's "Cave of Mammon" or Plutus."

As green fire is not of much use, and it is made with a portion of arsenic in it, we do not give directions for it.

TO PRODUCE THE SOUND OF FALLING RAIN IN A

CHARADE.

Procure a box 6 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 1 deep. Have the bottom of it covered with small pegs of wood 1 inch high, and inserted 2 inches apart. Place a quart of dried peas at one end of the box; then raise that end quite slowly, allowing the peas to roll gradually down to the lower part of the box. The sound they produce in striking against the pegs imitates admirably the falling of rain. The sound can be continued for any length of time by raising alternately each end of the box.

TO GIVE A MISTY OR VANISHING APPEARANCE TO A TABLEAU.

Several curtains of thin gauze or common mosquito netting, made to let down from rollers, one after another, between the audience and the scene, will give a beautifully misty appearance; and if a sufficient number of curtains be unrolled, the tableau will appear to vanish entirely, allowing room for a change of scenery. The gauze must be carefully managed, as the disclosure of a ragged edge will dispel all the illusion.

BLACK LANDSCAPES.

Pass a card or piece of cardboard through the smoke of a candle till it is quite black. Then take a pen-knife, and scratch upon it any landscape or design you please. Moonlight scenery is very effective in this way. In case of lack of pencils, &c., this is not a bad way of sketching a scene one desires to remember.

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HOME STUDIES.

A dry title!" perhaps you will say. "Surely the school-room gives quite enough work without attempting more! May we not enjoy life without lessons when our teachers set us free for a moment ?" Certainly; when in the full swing of compulsory study, with many hours in each day taken up by lessons that must be performed as a duty, no one can wish you to spend your times of recreation in anything but some form of healthful play : if you are little, in actual running about; if you are older, in quieter games, or in the many pleasant pursuits that rest and amuse, and which we hope here to assist you in finding out.

But all girls have not their whole time engrossed by their teachers; and most have spaces of holiday - either they are at school and come home for the vacation, or the governess goes to visit her friends, or the whole family goes to the sea-side and there is a general relaxation, or there are sojourns with friends and a suspension of lessons. And in process of time governesses cease to educate them, and they are left to educate themselves.

I remember, when I was a growing girl, being much struck by a sentence declaring that all persons may make their own character between fifteen and five and twenty. One sort of character is very easily made by taking no trouble with oneself-never exerting the mind, and getting from one kind of amusement to another by the idlest reading, or easiest work or chatter that offers. To serve other people there may sometimes be a good deal of pains taken, and this is the best chance for such characters; but how much better worth their services would be if they had made the most of themselves! For it is quite a mistake to think that the silly unintellectual person can be more useful in homely occupations than the sensible cultivated one. She may perhaps have more readiness and be more in practice because her taste has lain that way; but she will be slower in understanding directions, less fertile in resources, and more likely to be led by foolish useless prejudices than will one who has kept her faculties bright, and understands the whys and wherefores of what she does.

Thus, a young maiden who has any real desire to become-I was going to say a valuable member of society, but I will put it higher, and say-a truly "polished corner of the Temple," will like to work at her own polishing, instead of leaving herself to be rubbed down by either the tool, or by being shaken up with other stones. She will not waste her time, but will try to learn something for herself besides what she is taught; and this is one of her first steps towards "putting away childish things."

So she will not do like the many children held up for warnings in storybooks, and do nothing but amuse herself in holiday-time, though I suspect she will soon be like Mrs. Gatty's happy heroine, who had the precious fairy gift of always enjoying whatever she was occupied in, and that she will feel all the wide difference between "doing what we like, and liking what we