, a square, or oblong mat of this
rag-strip, just as with cotton or worsted. It makes a strong, durable,
and, with bright and tasteful colors, a very pretty rug.

A SCREEN.

A folding clothes-horse with two leaves, such as is used in laundries,
makes the foundation for this screen. The wood is painted solid
black, and covered inside and out with very yellow unbleached cotton,
stretched tightly over the frame, and held down by black upholstery
braid fastened on with gilt nails. A design in flowers, leaves, birds,
double circles, crescents, and parallel bars, to imitate the Japanese
style of decoration, is painted in oil colors on the cotton, and a
motto on the wood along the top. If the motto is arranged to read
backward, the foreign effect of the whole will be enhanced. We have
seen a striking screen of this sort made by a little girl who, as she
could not paint in oil colors, decorated the surface with figures of
various kinds cut from Japanese picture-papers, such as are now sold
for from ten to twenty cents in the Japanese goods shops. Her figures
were so well pasted and arranged, that the screen was one of the
prettiest things in the bedroom.

Screens covered with pictures cut from magazines and illustrated
newspapers are very much liked by boys and girls, and by some of their
elders.

A COUVRE-PIED.

This is a large oblong in loosely knitted double zephyr wools, and is
made double, dark brown on one side, for instance, and pale blue on
the other. The two are united with a border in open crochet of the
brown, laced through with light blue ribbon, which is finished at each
corner with a loosely tied bow and ends. The _couvre-pied_, as the
name indicates, is meant to cover the feet of a person who lies on a
sofa, and is an excellent present to make to an elderly or invalid
friend.

TILE OR CHINA PAINTING.

Don't be frightened at the word, dears. China-painting is high art
sometimes, and intricate and difficult work often, but it is quite
possible to produce pretty effects without knowing a great deal about
either china or painting. Neither are the materials of necessity
expensive. All that you need, to begin with, are a few half tubes of
china or mineral paints, which cost about as much as oil colors,
four or five camel's-hair brushes, a palette-knife, a small phial of
oil-of-lavender, and another of oil-of-turpentine, a plain glazed
china cup or plate or tile to work on, and either a china palette or