make the closet ornamental as well as
convenient.

TABLE-TALK.--A sullen, silent meal is a direct promoter of
dyspepsia. "Laugh and grow fat" is an ancient adage embodying good
hygienic doctrine. It has long been well understood that food digests
better when seasoned with agreeable conversation, and it is important
that unpleasant topics should be avoided. Mealtime should not be made
the occasion to discuss troubles, trials, and misfortunes, which rouse
only gloomy thoughts, impair digestion, and leave one at the close of
the meal worried and wearied rather than refreshed and strengthened. Let
vexatious questions be banished from the family board. Fill the time
with bright, sparkling conversation, but do not talk business or discuss
neighborhood gossip. Do not let the food upon the table furnish the
theme of conversation; neither praise nor apology are in good taste.
Parents who make their food thus an especial topic of conversation are
instilling into their children's minds a notion that eating is the best
part of life, whereas it is only a means to a higher end, and should be
so considered. Of all family gatherings the meals should be the most
genial and pleasant, and with a little effort they may be made most
profitable to all. It is said of Dr. Franklin that he derived his
peculiarly practical turn of mind from his father's table talk.

Let themes of conversation be of general interest, in which all may take
a part. If there are children, a pleasant custom for the breakfast hour
is to have each in turn relate something new and instructive, that he or
she has read or learned in the interval since the breakfast hour of the
previous day. This stimulates thought and conversational power, while
music, history, adventure, politics, and all the arts and sciences offer
ample scope for securing interesting items.

Another excellent plan is the selection of a special topic for
conversation for each meal or for the meals of a day or a week, a
previous announcement of the topic being made, that all, even the
youngest, may have time to prepare something to say of it. The benefits
from such social intercourse around the board can hardly be
over-estimated; and if thus the mealtime is prolonged, and too much
appears to be taken out of the busy day, be sure it will add to their
years in the end, by increasing health and happiness.

TABLE MANNERS.--Good breeding and true refinement are nowhere more
apparent than in manners at ta