hinged cover,
can be made by a tinsmith at small cost. Its dimensions should be about
thirty inches in length by five inches in diameter, with a strap
attached to carry it by. At still less expense a frame can be made, or
bought, formed of two boards, one-eighth of an inch thick, twenty-four
inches long and eighteen inches broad, with two thin battens fastened
across them to prevent warping. A quire of soft brown paper, newspaper
will do, and a strap to hold all together, complete the outfit.

Our gathered treasures at home, we may wish to deck a table or a mantel
with a few of them. The lives of impressed blossoms can be, much
prolonged by exercising a little care. Punch holes in a round of
cardboard and put the stalks through these holes before placing the
flowers in a vase. This prevents the stalks touching each other, and so
decaying before their time. A little charcoal in the water tends to keep
it pure; the water should be changed daily.

A flower will fade at last be it tended ever so carefully. If we wish to
preserve it dried we can best do so as soon as we bring it home, by
placing it between sheets of absorbent paper (newspaper will do) well
weighted down, the paper to be renewed if the plants are succulent and
if there is any risk of mildew. But a dried plant after all is only a
mummy. Its colours are gone; its form bruised and crumpled, gives only a
faint suggestion of it as it lived and breathed. Other and more pleasant
reminders of our summer rambles can be ours. With a camera of fair size
it is easy to take pictures of flowers at their best; these pictures can
be coloured in their natural tints with happy effect. In this art Mrs.
Cornelius Van Brunt, of New York, has attained extraordinary success.
Or, instead of the camera, why not at first invoke the brush and
colour-box? Only a little skill in handling them is enough for a
beginning. Practice soon increases deftness in this art as in every
other, and in a few short weeks floral portraits are painted with a
truth to nature denied the unaided pencil. For what flower, however meek
and lowly, could ever tell its story in plain black and white?

The amateur painter of flowers learns a good many things by the way; at
the very outset, that drawing accurate and clear must be the groundwork
of any painting worthy the name. Both in the use of pencil and brush
there must be a degree of painstaking observation, wholesome as a
discipline and delightful in its har