oral, as if the
very flowers had been banished after the Queen's death. The influence of
the King and of his successors was very noticeable in the style and
decoration of household goods; the history of this country at that time,
just as the history of France had been, was reflected in the art of its
craftsmen.

A Cultivated Taste.

The love of the antique is regarded by some as a cultivated taste. The
specialization upon any one branch of household curios may justly be
regarded as such, but surely not the regard, almost reverence, for
family relics, although they are but the common things of everyday life!
Their collection stimulates the connoisseur, and encourages him to fresh
exertions, and in that sense the habit of keeping a keen look out for
anything that may illumine previous researches or add greater lustre to
those things already secured, is gradually cultivated.

Household curios are not unassociated with the folklore of the district
where such objects have been made, or were commonly in use; and the very
names of many things, the uses of which are almost forgotten, are
suggestive of former occupations and older methods of practising
household economy and the preparation of food. It is common knowledge
that the purest old English is met with in the dialects of the
countryside, and oftentimes once household words, now lost in modern
speech, are found again when the old names or original purposes of the
curios remaining to us are discovered. The cultivation of a taste for
gathering together household antiques is much to be desired, and in the
pursuit of such knowledge there is great pleasure--and as the value of
genuine antiques is ever rising, some profit, too.

II

THE INGLE SIDE

CHAPTER II

THE INGLE SIDE

Fire-making appliances--Tinder boxes--The fireplace--Andirons
and fire-dogs--Sussex backs--Fireirons and fenders--Trivets and
stools--Bellows.

In winter the ingle side, or its equivalent in a modern house, appears
to be the chief centre of attraction. It was ever so; and to-day the
lessened necessity for crowding round the fire and sitting in the ingle
nook, owing to modern methods of distributing the heat, in no way
lessens the attraction which draws an Englishman to the fire. In the
United States of America stoves of various kinds are deemed good
substitutes, but in this country the open fire is preferred, and modern
scientific research aims at perfecting and