id I. "Now these
frames, for instance----"

"Oh, they are sweet! they are really," interrupted my cousin.

"Cost next to nothing," I continued. "Shall we make a pair for you to
take home? That would be something to start with, at any rate."

Bella was delighted at the idea, which we forthwith carried out; and now
for the benefit of little folk, who may like to know how to make
something pretty for their rooms, at a small cost, I will proceed to
relate what these said frames were made of, and how we made them.

First of all, we got a good stock of materials, such as small fir-cones,
oak-balls, tiny pieces of bark, beech-nuts, bits of silvery lichen
stolen from the trunks of trees, the little crinkly black cones of the
alder, in fact everything of the kind that we could pick up in our
rambles about the lanes and woods.

Bella called our gleanings, "the harvest of a roving eye;" and children
who live in the country will have no difficulty in gathering in such a
harvest, as will suffice for the making of dozens of frames. Of course,
autumn is the best time to get them.

The next thing was to decide upon the pictures, for it is always better
to make your frame to fit your picture, than to be obliged to hunt for a
picture the right size for your frame. Christmas-cards do very nicely;
those with a light ground look the best, as the frames are dark. I
happened to have two of those fancy heads that are seen in picture-shop
windows nowadays (cabinet size).

For these, I first cut out a paper pattern of the frame, an oval about
8-1/2 inches long, and 6-3/4 inches broad; then I drew a line inside the oval,
about 1-3/4 inches from the edge, and cut the middle out. When I had
succeeded to my satisfaction in making a correct pattern, I laid it on a
sheet of thin millboard, traced the outline inside and outside the oval
with a pencil, and cut it out. Of course, when once you have the pattern
in cardboard, it is very easy to cut any number of frames, but it is
always a little difficult to get a perfect oval just the exact size for
your picture.

My cousin and I then bound both edges with strips of old black stuff,
about an inch wide, cut on the cross. I then rushed for the glue-pot,
and let me here remark that _very strong_ glue is an absolute necessity,
or the cones will continually drop off.

We began to stick on the cones, &c., as fast as we could, while the glue
was hot, and for this part of the work I can give no special