s description of Mr. Felt's machine, to
explain every technicality, or to raise and answer possible objections.
The great point is, that the labor of setting, justifying, leading, and
distributing types by machinery is actually done, by means of his
invention. Thus the aspiration of inventive genius, in this department
of art, is nobly fulfilled. Thus the links in the chain of progress are
complete, from Laurentius Coster, walking in the woods of Holland, in
1430, and winning, from an accidental shower-bath, the art of making
movable types, down to the wide-awake Massachusetts Yankee, whose genius
will make printing as cheap as writing, and therefore a thousand times
more available for all purposes of civilization,--besides lightening the
burdens of toil, and blessing the jaded worker with a bright prospect of
health, competence, and ease.

* * * * *

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.

BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.

V.

RAKING UP THE FIRE.

We have a custom at our house which we call _raking up the fire_. That
is to say, the last half-hour before bed-time, we draw in, shoulder to
shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which we
prick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers and
glimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk over
parties, if the young people have been out of an evening,--a book, if we
have been reading one; we discuss and analyze characters,--give our
views on all subjects, aesthetic, theological, and scientific, in a way
most wonderful to hear; and, in fact, we sometimes get so engaged in our
discussions that every spark of the fire burns out, and we begin to feel
ourselves shivering around the shoulders, before we can remember that it
is bed-time.

So, after the reading of my last article, we had a "raking-up talk,"--to
wit, Jennie, Marianne, and I, with Bob Stephens;--my wife, still busy
at her work-basket, sat at the table a little behind us. Jennie, of
course, opened the ball in her usual incisive manner.

"But now, papa, after all you say in your piece there, I cannot help
feeling, that, if I had the taste and the money too, it would be better
than the taste alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements and the
books and the drawings; but I think all these would appear better still
with really elegant furniture."

"Who doubts that?" said I. "Give me a large tub of gold coin to dip
into, and the furnishing and beau