Don't be frightened at the word, dears. China-painting is high art sometimes, and intricate and difficult work often, but it is quite possible to produce pretty effects without knowing a great deal about either china or painting. Neither are the materials of necessity expensive. All that you need, to begin with, are a few half tubes of china or mineral paints, which cost about as much as oil colors, four or five camel's-hair brushes, a palette-knife, a small phial of oil-of-lavender, and another of oil-of-turpentine, a plain glazed china cup or plate or tile to work on, and either a china palette or another plate on which to rub the paints. For colors, black, capuchine red, rose-pink, yellow, blue, green and brown are an ample assortment for a novice and for purposes of practice. We would advise only two tubes, one of black and one of rose pink, which are colors that do not betray your confidence when it comes to baking. For the chief difficulty in china-painting is that to be permanent the work must be "fired,"--that is, fused by a great heat in a furnace,--and it requires a great deal of experience to learn what the different tints are likely to do under this test. Some colors--yellow, for instance--eat up, so to speak, the colors laid over them. Others change tint. Pinks and some of the greens grow more intense; white cannot be trusted, and mixing one paint with another, as in oils, can only be done safely by experts. It is well, therefore, to begin with two simple colors, and you will be surprised to see how much may be done with them. (See "Hollenberry Cup," in ST. NICHOLAS for May, 1877, page 458.) A cup of transparent white china, the handle painted black, a Japanese-looking bough with black foliage and pink blossoms thrown over it, and a little motto, has a really charming effect. But be sure to put on the pink very pale, and the black, not in a hard, solid streak, but delicately, to suggest shading from dark to light, or the result of the baking will be disappointment. [Illustration: WOODEN BOX, ORNAMENTED WITH FERNS (AUTUMN-LEAF WORK).] The method of preparing the colors is to squeeze a very little paint from each tube upon your palette or plate; take a tiny drop of oil-of-lavender on the palette-knife, and with it rub the paint smooth. It should be thinned just enough to work smoothly; every drop of oil added after that is a disadvantage. Use a separate brush for each color, and wash them thoroughly with soap and hot water before putting them aside. The painting should be set away where no dust can come to it, and it will dry rapidly in forty-eight hours or less. Elaborate work often requires repainting after baking, the process being repeated several times; but for simpler designs one baking is usually enough. There are bakeries in Boston, New York, and others of our large cities, to which china can be sent, the price of baking being about ten cents for each article. [Illustration: TABLE-TOP (NOVELTIES IN FERN-WORK)]