friend has left it altogether to me, that when I have lost ten or
fifteen pounds more, we shall send you the invitations."

As the wedding day approached she brought the figures 152 on a card, and
exclaimed, with her blue eyes running over:

"I am the happiest girl in the world, and don't you think I have
honestly earned it? I think I am a great deal happier than I should have
been had I not worked for it."

The papers said the bride was beautiful. I thought she was, and I
suppose no one but herself and husband felt as much interested in that
beauty as I did. I took a sort of scientific interest in it.

We made the usual call upon them during the first month, and when, two
months after the wedding, they were spending the evening with us, I
asked him if his wife had told him about my relations with her
avoirdupois? He laughed heartily, and replied:

"Oh, yes, she has told me everything, I suppose: but wasn't it funny?"

"Not very. I am sure you wouldn't have thought it funny if you could
have heard our first interview. It was just the reverse of funny; don't
you think so madam?"

"I am sure it was the most anxious visit I ever paid any one. Doctor, my
good husband says he should have married me just the same, but I think
he would have been a goose if he had."

"Yes," said the husband, "it was foreordained that we two should be
one."

"To be sure it was," replied the happy wife, "because it was
foreordained that I should get rid of those horrid fifty-seven pounds. I
am going down till I reach one hundred and forty pounds, and there I
will stop, unless my husband says one hundred and thirty. I am willing
do anything to please him."--_Dio Lewis' Monthly._

ORNAMENTS FOR HOMES.

It is not the most expensively furnished houses that are the most
homelike, besides comparatively few persons have the means to gratify
their love of pretty little ornaments with which to beautify their
homes. It is really painful to visit some houses; there naked walls and
cheerless rooms meet you yet there are many such, and children in them
too. How much might these homes be brightened by careful forethought in
making some little ornaments that are really of no expense, save the
time.

Comb cases, card receivers, letter holders, match safes, paper racks,
cornucopias, and many other pretty and useful things can easily be made
of nice clean paste board boxes (and the boxes are to be found in a
variety of colors). For any of t