But we have said enough to open the path to our readers; and once entered therein, they will find the work infinitely suggestive, and offering scope for every graceful and tasteful vagary. So we will only add a little word of advice--aim at lightness, not only of appearance, but of actual weight, and never crowd or load any ornament with too much work. The leading principle of artistic excellence in every department of art is simplicity; and this may be attained by close and severe attention. The eye is most pleased when it can retain at a glance the chief points of attraction. In our third article, we shall give instructions for making baskets, &c. VALENTINE'S DAY. In the western counties, the children, decked with the wreaths and true-lover's knots presented to them, gayly adorn one of their number as their chief, and march from house to house, singing-- "Good-morrow to you, Valentine! Curl your locks as I do mine, Two before and three behind; Good-morrow to you, Valentine!" They commence in many places as early as six o'clock in the morning, and intermingle the cry, "To-morrow is come!" Afterwards they make merry with their collections. At Islip, Oxfordshire, England, I have heard the children sing the following, when collecting pence on this day-- "Good-morrow, Valentine! I be thine and thou be'st mine, So please give me a Valentine." And likewise the following-- "Good-morrow, Valentine! God bless you ever! If you'll be true to me, I'll be the like to thee; Old England for ever!" Schoolboys have a very uncomplimentary way of presenting each other with these poetical memorials-- "Peep, fool, peep, What do you think to see? Every one has a Valentine, And here's one for thee!" Far different from these is a stanza which is a great favorite with young girls on this day, offered indiscriminately, and, of course, quite innocently, to most of their acquaintances-- "The rose is red, The violet's blue; Pinks are sweet, And so are you!" The mission of Valentines is one of the very few old customs not on the wane; and the streets of our metropolis practically bear evidence of this fact in the distribution of love-messages on our stalls and shop-windows, varying in price from a sovereign to one halfpenny. Our readers, no doubt, will ask for its origin, and there we are at fault to begin with. The events of St. Valentine's life furnish no clue whatever to the mystery, although Wheatley, in his "Illustration of the Common Prayer," absurdly disposes of the question in this way: "St. Valentine was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity, that the custom of choosing Valentines upon his festival, which is still practised, took its rise from thence." We see no explanation here in any way satisfactory, and must be contented with the hope that some of our antiquaries may hit on something more to the purpose.