!
It is a question of taste, tact, and a desire to please another. On the
very street where I live there is a quiet little house, occupied by a
newly-married couple. It is inexpensive, and the furniture is not
costly. But there is so much taste in the furnishing and ornamentation,
and there is so much brightness in all the rooms, that the home is a
charming picture. I seldom pass it without thinking of the beautiful,
but not costly, interior.

GOOD READING AT HOME.

A home without books is a desert. In these days all the standard authors
can be bought at small price, and even the humblest home should be
adorned with the companionship of at least some of them. You may not
have a taste for reading; at any rate, you may think you have not. But
possibly you have made a mistake in the kind of books you have tried to
enjoy, and so imagined that you do not like any books. Try another
class, and you will likely be surprised to find that you can enjoy them.
Suppose you have not the experience to select proper books. Now, you
will have a pastor, of course, and a church home. Make a friend of that
pastor. He ought to be a good adviser in the matter of proper books. At
any rate, get some judicious friend to help you in the choice. Buy only
a very few books at a time, and let your little home-library grow
gradually. Never buy a book that you have your doubts about. Emerson's
advice to buy only a standard work, which has been out for years, has
its good and safe quality. Avoid too much fiction and a superabundance
of periodical literature. One popular magazine is enough. The money
which you have for reading-matter should be confined chiefly to books,
and they ought to be the world's masterpieces.

I am satisfied that in the average home there is too little reading.
History, biography, travel, with a fair share of religious books, can be
read in course at home, in the odd half hours, and the mind become
richly stored with facts. Is there any thing in the domestic life which
ought to interfere with this constant culture of the mind? Not at all.
The domestic life is highly favorable to mental discipline. The very
beginning of real intellectual improvement in many a mind has been in
the new home of persons just married. The reading aloud of an
interesting work, the one to the other, is a delightful entertainment,
and gives a new charm to life. Every effort must be employed to keep the
mind from becoming sluggish and barren. We