ook bright and
cheerful, while others are melancholy and dull. The difference is
caused by the good or bad taste with which they are papered. Yet who
shall say what events may arise from such a simple thing as the first
impressions of an important visitor? And these impressions may
involuntarily receive their primal tone from a light, cheerful, or
dull, dark hall paper.

All rooms open to the public must have a certain air of conventional
arrangement; but the parlor in every home ought to be a room of
character and individuality. Here is the very shrine and sanctuary of
the Lares and Penates. Here is the grandmamma's chair and knitting,
and mamma's work-basket, and the sofa on which papa lounges and reads
his evening paper. Here are Annie's flowers and Mary's easel and
Jack's much-abused class-books. Here the girls practise and the boys
rig their ship and mamma looks serious over the house books. In this
room the picture papers lie around, every one's favorite volume is on
the table, and the walls are sacred to the family portraits. In this
room the family councils are held and the dear invalids nursed back to
life. Here the boys come to say "good-bye" when they go away to school
or to business. Here the girls, in their gay party-dresses, come for
papa's final bantering kiss and mamma's last admiration and
admonition. Ah, this room!--this dear, untidy, unfashionable parlor!
It is the citadel of the household, the very _heart of the home_.

None can deny the influence which childhood's home has over them, even
unto their hoary-hairs; the memory of a happy, comfortable one is
better than an inheritance. The girls and boys who leave it have a
positive ideal to realize. There is no speculation in their efforts;
they _know_ that home is "Sweet Home." But in all their imaginings
chairs and tables and curtains and carpets have a conspicuous place.
This life is all we have to front eternity with, therefore nothing
that touches it is of small consequence. It is something to the body
to have comfortable and appropriate household surroundings, it is much
more to the mind. Is there any one whose feelings and energies are not
depressed by a cold, comfortless, untidy room? And who does not feel a
positive exaltation of spirit in the glow of a bright fire and the
cosey surroundings of a prettily furnished apartment?

God has not made us to differ in this respect. A pleasant home is the
dream and hope of every good man and woman. As