In my best room we lift out the leaded bars and replace them with bright brass ones, filling in the space with faggots and coal and fircones. The glistening rods do not prevent our having an occasional blaze, for a rub with “Globe” polish soon polishes them after use. We do not lift away the pierced brass curb or dogs, but amongst and behind them a few pots of ferns are stood about. They do not mind the draught up the chimney (N.B.--No register is ever drawn down in mine house), and can be judiciously damped as they stand on the tiled hearth. A second suffices to shift these when a fire is called for. I think easy removal is the primary rule in decoration of our ingle-nook. Thus, heavy, dust-collecting curtains should never be attached to the mantelpiece; much less may art muslin draperies be tolerated. I have seen them in some houses with all their suggestiveness of downright tragedy veiled by flimsy unreality. One spark, one splutter, one fizz, and flames would lick them up like paper. A hammered brass and iron screen--a sheet of looking-glass--if you must hide the settee. On the other hand, a fir or larch bough, with its red-brown stem and crimson tassels, may be laid across the set fire, and one has decoration enough. Nothing can be beautiful in our ingle-nook which conveys a false notion of the purpose to which it will be applied. Decorative art requires that the nature of construction should as far as possible be revealed or indicated by the ornament which it bears. “The beauty of fitness” must be borne in mind when we are tempted to fill the fire-baskets in our ingle-nooks with tinsel and shavings, paper designs or artificial flowers. In the huge chimney space of an ancient fireplace logs of wood carelessly piled on dogs was a fit and appropriate decoration. So a well laid fire is, after all, to end with as well as to begin with the best ornament we can stand in the ingle-nook. Perhaps no object in mine house speaks of higher things in a louder voice than does the fire in its ingle-nook. Scenes of terror and beauty in the Bible often surround a hearth and a flame. The burning bush which hid Jehovah; the flashing fire enfolding itself (Ezek. i.) displayed Him; a furnace lit up the first covenant (Gen. xv. 17), and so on through the whole book. In one of the Significant Rooms of the Interpreter’s House a fire burned all the year round upon which rival forces poured oil and water--a picture this of God’s grace overcoming the evil one. And so we weave round the most sacred spot in our homes a fabric of thought and poetry and prayer-- “Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.” A little cricket still chirps of love and help and warmth and all that makes life lovely. (_To be continued._) CHINA MARKS. ENGLISH PORCELAIN. PART IV. SALOPIAN WORKS, CAUGHLEY.