(_To be continued._) [Illustration] "IN MINE HOUSE." BY LINA ORMAN COOPER, Author of "The King's Daughters," etc. PART I. ITS CUPBOARDS. Mine house is not an old-fashioned, picturesque one; it boasts of no mullioned windows or deep embrasures. It is like hundreds of others to be found scattered over England--built after the same plan and decorated after the same fashion. It stands in a street, and is reduplicated on every hand like a cardboard expanding toy. It draws a peaked gable roof over its red brick face, and has no originality to awake attention. In one thing only is mine house unique. Its general architecture it owes to its builder, its cupboards to a certain little old lady who lived therein for many years. Every spot has been utilised, and I rejoice in the most comfortable interior it is possible to imagine. "A place for everything and everything in its place" is a motto easily followed in this mine house. Nowadays most matrons have wakened to the delights of a well-cupboarded "manio," or abiding-place. The first thing looked for in taking a new house is its capabilities in this direction. The long-headed woman values every recess and corner as a possible press. She knows a few shillings spent in pine-boards, hooks, curtains, and locks, can transform dust-collecting angles into dust-resisting receptacles. With a little forethought and contrivance, our carpenter can be so superintended that such work need not be made into "fixtures"--sliding grooves and panels, a few staples and screws, insure easily taken-down wardrobes, and need not strain the purse of even a frequent flitter. The first necessary cupboard in mine house is the linen press. This should, if possible, be built over those unseemly hot-water pipes which supply the bath from our kitchen boiler. There should be graduated shelves in it--wide ones to hold sheets, narrow ones for table napkins, d'oyleys, etc. Every shelf should be neatly lined with white paper, and one at least must have linen laps to tie over our least-used napery. Plenty of lavender bags--measuring the length of the press--should be placed everywhere; not tiny satchel-like things, which rumple into corners and get mislaid, but at least a yard in length and just as wide as each shelf. On the door should be pasted a list of the linen stored in this our press. This list varies much in each house; but I will tell you what I consider absolutely necessary only. First, there should be six Irish linen tablecloths for parlour use and three breakfast cloths; six fine table-napkins for every member of the family. For kitchen wear, three smaller coarser cloths are required, and, if you wish to inculcate habits of nicety in your maids, three napkins apiece must be provided. This allows for one in use, one at the laundry, and one in reserve. Half-a-dozen fringed tea-cloths, half-a-dozen sideboard slips, a couple of dozen oval, round, and square d'oyleys, and the embellishment of the dining-table is secured.