Paintings upon plush must be exceedingly good to make them worth hanging anywhere. Usually such decoration is a waste of expensive material. Any way, plush is too easily spoiled by dust or careless handling to make it welcome in the family room. Painting upon picture and looking-glass frames is another misuse of decoration. A London artist with rare ingenuity paints a stalk of lilies to hide a flaw in his hall mirror, and straightway the “Decorative Art” salesrooms all over our land effloresce with blooming mirror frames whose unpruned vines straggle and trail over every glass. The beauty of a mirror is to have it absolutely clear and free from dust and dirt, finger marks or paint blotches, throughout its entire surface. Flower painting in polychrome upon frames and easels is utterly out of place, as it calls the eye off from the picture which the frame or easel holds, and reminds one of a servant decked out in finery surreptitiously borrowed from her mistress’s wardrobe. Marble mantel pieces, to be good, must be expensive. A simple pine mantel piece with a little incised ornament is far better than white or cold gray marble. Raised, stuck-on ornament is objectionable, whether in wood or stone, but mantel pieces, book-cases and cabinets give a fine opportunity for domestic carving, and one can but wonder that more home ingenuity is not expended on the construction and carving of mantels and other woodwork in our rooms, such as doors and windows. I have seen a wooden mantel piece small, plain, and somewhat cheap and inferior-looking, so improved by a little carving, judiciously introduced by the man of the house—a small panel set in here, and the edge of the shelf prettily finished—that the whole thing grew dignified at once and became a worthy ornament of the “spare room,” when painted in harmony with the rest of the woodwork. The youngest whittlers might be taught to use tools for the family good, if parents were only willing to go to a little trouble and expense in providing models, tools and wood for their use, and a comfortable chimney nook where the work could be carried on. In the schools of Philadelphia Mr. Leland has shown how much may be done by boys and girls when their efforts are wisely directed.