The beauty of silver and pottery depends first upon their form and adaptation to use; secondly, upon their decoration. Delicate chasings and thin _repoussé_ work are naturally as appropriate to silver as good shapes and _flat_ decoration are to earthen ware. As to glass, there is a crystal craze at present, and “hob-nail” glass glitters on all tables. Miss Lucy Crane, in her lecture on “Form,” says (and I quote freely because her words are timely): “As the beauty of glass consists in its transparency and lightness, and its capability of being twisted or blown or moulded into a multitude of delicate forms, it early occurred to the manufacturing mind that if made thick and solid, and cut into facets it would resemble crystal; and thus it has come to be a fixed idea that hard glitter is its most valuable quality, so it is made inches thick, and pounds heavy, to enhance its brilliancy; and being one of the most fragile of substances, it must be engraved with people’s crests and monograms as if it were intended to carry down the name of the family for generations to come! Being of its nature transparent, it must be rendered opaque of set intention by coloring matter, and then painted and gilded! Since at its strongest glass can never be anything but fragile, at least let it keep the beauty belonging to fragility; since it is naturally transparent, let the light be seen streaming through it, sometimes delicately tinted, sometimes iridescent, and, instead of being cut, let it be blown and twisted into the thousand delicate shapes to which it easily lends itself, and of which in the Venetian glass of a bygone day, and in its present revival, there are such delightful examples.” I saw last evening a handful of flasks on their way to the laboratory, whose soap bubble effects were far more beautiful than all the cold glitter of all the “hob-nail” ware that Sandwich has ever produced. In a boarding house it may economize labor to set the table over night, but it is pleasanter and more homelike to have it set fresh and clean with the morning light; beside, to have the dining table clear of an evening is often a great family convenience. The dining room affords grand opportunity for the domestic artist. The bread board, bread and carving knife handles, salad fork and spoon, all offer employment to the carver’s tool, to say nothing of cabinet, sideboard and over-mantel. Tiles for tea pot rests and all sorts of china call for the decorator’s skillful brush, while tea cloths and coseys, doilies, mats, centerpieces and carving cloths all await the embroiderer’s needle. Arise, my young readers, and take your tools in hand, for home work is the fairest adorning of the homelike house. MEXICO.