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TRUEVILLE is the home of two families. Of course, it is also the home of others; else, it would not be the average village that it is. But two are representative of many of the others. One is the Crossgrain family; the other the Straightgrain. Both have comfortable incomes, and their heads are esteemed fairly educated, as education is scaled in the average village of the West. And, so far as the carpenter, mason, and painter have gone, their residences indicate social equality. The two families attend one church. There are children, grown and growing, in each. Only a single block of village earth keeps asunder their front gates, and their garden fences eye each other across a narrow alley. So similar, indeed, are the conventional surroundings of the C's and S————'s, that strangers in Trueville often ask if their homes are not those of brothers.

But, in spite of these overcoats of one cloth and one cut which cover these homes, the world sniffs a suspicion that their inside furnishings are very unlike. And yet it very rarely draws the latchstring to the domicile of the Crossgrains. Even when it passes on foot it hugs the outer edge of the sidewalk, and barely glances between the pickets at the flowers within-mostly snow-drops. | With what keen senses the public walks abroad! Its instinct percolates where water cannot. The bad fellow buttons his coat, pulls down his hat, and goes into the street fancying that he is not known. But does anybody spontaneously press his hand and smile upon him? His deeds may not be identified, but his nature is. Sir Churl and wife roll into their residence, bolt the doors, close the shutters, drop the curtains, muzzle the servants, and think, poor fools, that the world is blindfolded! Enough things it doesn't see, but those that are trying to hide are not of the number. It has a sleepless eye for shy folks, and homes that study most to make their walls opaque make them transparent.

So the Crossgrain front steps are little worn with visitors' shoes, and the bell-wire is known never to have been snapped with the force of one solicitous to become a guest within. The outlying of this home looks smooth enough; in fact,

so smooth that the waters of sympathy glide around it as the rain-drops roll from the duck's back. It is cold, too; snow-banks keep on its grounds till June; its grass doesn't start till the Straightgrain lawn has enjoyed its first spring shave; and an icicle on legs is annually seen there as late as July. Of course, these title-page inscriptions tell pretty clearly the nature of the contents.

But since I reside in a town adjoining Trueville, and have business relations with Mr. Crossgrain, I may as well let you read a page or two within the family lids. I was one day detained at his store till the dinner-hour, with items of "unfinished business" still to adjust. He invited me to his home to dine. As to this act of hospitality, which he couldn't well avoid, he manifested a shade of misgiving; I felt two shades, but kept them covered with a light countenance. In truth, somehow, I felt an inward wonder if it wasn't I who, in going, would confer the hospitality. But, bent on the sacrifice of self, I went.

Mr. C was broad in the shoulders, short in the neck, square in the face, and stumpy in the legs. He wore a grizzly beard, five days without a cut, a sort of hair-brush without a handle. His visible linen had ceased to be a thing of beauty by several days. His finger-nails were bordered with blue. And his salt-and-pepper garments hung upon his person in uncongenial fits, and not nearer than his other habits to courting social familiarity. He talked but little, and one felt grateful when that little languished, for his voice had the grate of rusted hinges and his face no smiles.

As we neared the inlet to the Crossgrain residence, two small children at play in the yard, strangers to pocket-handkerchiefs, first pressed their crimson faces between the fence pickets to assure themselves what I was, then ran around to a side-door, screaming, "Ma! there's another man come home with pa !''

I naturally guessed that the other man hadn't proved a source of pleasure to "ma," and took soundings for snags in my own path.

We ascended the front steps, and found the

door locked. My host rang, but no answer came. Then I sat down on the porch-rail, and waited while my host went around and let me in. In his absence I was amused, if not comforted, by hearing a woman's voice bitterly demanding, "Sam, didn't you know better'n to bring another fellow home to dinner?"

"Sam" didn't confess to any knowledge of that kind, but appeared to enter a mental mem. of the question for domestic debate by lamplight, probably.

I followed my host into the hallway, laid aside my hat and great-coat, and entered a well-furnished, but not well-used, parlor. But it gave only cold greeting. There was no fire in its grate, and a finger on its marble mantel-shelf was a chill along the spine. We passed on into the sitting-room, or "library," as Mr. Crossgrain took evident pride it calling it, though I discerned nothing more bookish than an almanac, a hymn-book, and a trash story paper. This room, too, was cold. It had in one corner a handsome heating-stove, but it gave no sign of having comforted any soul through the sense of feeling for a week or more. The room, from carpet to ceiling, in fact, looked as though domestic stagnation had struck it. A sewing-machine stood at one side, but the dust upon its case seemed to invite my autograph ironi a finger's tip.

I heard high notes in an adjoining room, and concluded that it contained the fire of an untamed temper, if not of anthracite.

"We don't often have company," said my host presently, "and the women folks let the fire go out in here. Let's go where there is some, if the room isn't so fine."

It didn't become me to object to anything at that time and place, and I meekly took the trail behind my guide; that trail led into the dining

room.

"Sophi!" shouted Mr. Crossgrain, as we passed the threshold, "this is Mr. Smith, of Jonesburg!"

sight. Interpreted by inference, "Nell" meant daughter.

My host presented me a chair by the stove, and took one himself. I sought to engage him in conversation upon points in the news and thoughts of the day, but could get only an assenting monosyllable to each of my observations. And, having nothing to read, I became the student of my surroundings.

The pair of Crossgrain splinters who had first heralded my coming to "ma" now climbed upon the paternal knees and stared at me, in further proof that "we don't often have company." I was not sad to see them shy of me. I love children, and realize that they must be largely made after they are born; but I do not like them made large by neglected secretions. They ought to begin to cut character almost as soon as they do teeth.

It was 12.30, his usual hour of dining, my host said, though I began to doubt if anything in his family had a "usual" time to happen. There was not even the odor of dinner crowding through the keyhole from the kitchen. The mother and daughter, both in tattered, soiled calico, hair uncombed, but loosely caught up with a twist and a hairpin, had just begun "picking up" the diningroom as we entered it. Hastily a pair of soiled stockings, a boy's pair of ragged pants, the shadow of a set of corsets, and other undress débris were whisked through a door of escape; two chairs were lifted from their backs and made to stand upon their crippled legs; Tommy's scalloped slice of bread-and-butter was removed from a third chair; then the stub of a broom was brought in and made to do "duty”—raise a dust.

About this room for family gathering three times a day, there was not a fruit-piece, a gaming-piece, other picture or symbol of family cheer and table pleasure.

But there was bustling within the kitchen, rattling of tins and kettles, and poking of the stove, and the frequent audible "fret" in rude female

After an hour's waiting, the meal was served, a

Again my host spoke: "Nell, Mr. Smith." A young woman of about eighteen looked up, smiled, with a blush of shame for "the very looks o' things," as Smith saluted her, and hurried out of

better than usual. But I found I had outlived my appetite, for my time had been wasted; and the mother and daughter sat at table in their old gowns, looking worried in the creation of culinary extras on my account. The meal was hastily

There was no taste, or delicacy of manners, in man or woman, at home or away, in dress, in speech, in eating, in housekeeping. My adieu to the Crossgrains was unmingled with wonder that "we don't often have company."

A month later I was again in Trueville, and sat in the office of Mr. Straightgrain when his clock struck twelve. Business was over, and I arose to withdraw.

"Don't go, Mr. Smith," said he; "in a few moments I shall go to dinner, and I'll be very glad of your company.'

"But," said I, "I find that times occasions extra effort and part of the housewife."

company' someanxiety on the

"Not so with us. Mrs. S will greet you cheerily, I assure you, and serve you with the same quality she will give me. Isn't that fair fare ?"

window watching for her father's coming. She opened the door for us, met her father's friend with a pleasant word, then relieved her mother in the room where work is to be done just before meals. For neither of my Trueville acquaintances practiced the luxury and perplexity of maid-ser

vants.

Mrs. Straightgrain entered the parlor with such a sunny atmosphere about her, and such a grace in her voice, that I was at once truly relieved from embarrassment and all fear of being an embarrassment to her kitchen economy.

A few moments later the daughter announced dinner, and we passed out to an abundant, but plain, repast. But there was generous dessert in the surroundings-in the decorations on the walls; in the whiteness of the table-linen; in the brightness and sense of rest for all who ate; in the genial flow of intelligent conversation.

With pleasant thoughts I parted from the

making company. no oddity in our house," and that one visit was the seed of desire to go again. Making her house and herself the delight of her husband at all times, Mrs. S― found it always a delight to welcome a friend from the outside world, without extra labor or loss of temper.

And what I find true in Trueville may cast its shadow on other communities-that, in spite of a likeness in opportunities, people hold to antipodal modes of living; some to traits and habits which render their household a home, their neighbors to traits and habits which show you their household as a collection of half-wild animals, a sort of mimic caravan on carpets.

Too late, too late, the laurel-blooms are dead! About thy feet the withered blossoms lie, The wan, white petals, lusterless and dry; Their glow departed and their fragrance shed. Why came you not when rosy June had spread Her mantle to the sun?

Return, return, the laurel blooms no more, Until a twelvemonth's cycle rounds again! Your sighs and tears are all, are all in vain. They ne'er come back, the days that went before; But days to come may have sweet joys in store,

And triumphs to be won.

THE Cooler days of September bring fresh energy, and after summer leisure neglected pursuits are eagerly resumed. While fancy-work can scarcely be classed among the latter, it is nevertheless true that more elaborate pieces of embroidery are apt to be deferred until the autumn, when thoughts of the approaching holidays make deft fingers fly still more nimbly.

EMBROIDERED SOFA-PILLOW.

A very pretty design for a sofa pillow is that represented in Fig. 1, worked on coarse canvas

FIG. 1.-EMBROIDERY FOR A SOFA-PILLOW.

(canevas d'Espagne). Cross-stitch embroidery is used only for the outlines of the figures and the general groundwork. The filling out of the different figures is done in the so-called "Gobelinstitch," which is worked partly in horizontal and partly in vertical lines. The former is illustrated in Fig. 2, and the latter in Fig. 3. Overcast. them with long running-stitches of crewel wool, transposed, as shown by the illustration.

The pattern is worked with crewel wool. Paleblue, salmon color, olive-green, and pale-green are used alternately for the arabesques. Employ black wool for the grounding. Fig. 4 gives an enlarged quarter-section of the pattern, from which the design may be easily followed.

tishly arranged to form a cape and hood, by throwing one-half around the head, can be made by the following directions:

The materials are pink and white double mohair wool and a coarse wooden needle. The shawl is bordered with crocheted lace shaped in scallops, and between every two scallops tassels formed of white wool and pink chenille are fastened with a most graceful and becoming effect. Begin the shawl at the centre with white wool on a foundation of four c. h. (chain-stitch), closed to form a loop with one s. 1. (slip-stitch), and work on it as follows:

Ist row. Four times alternately three c. h. and one s. c. (single crochet) on the next foundation st. (stitch).

2d row. *three c. h., then for one corner, widening two pattern st. separated by three c. h. on the middle one of the next three c. h. in the preceding row; each pattern-stitch is worked in this manner: Four times alternately wind the thread about the needle and take up a st. from the st. designated, inserting the needle into the st. and drawing the thread through it to do so, then work

FIG. 3.-GOBELIN-STITCH.

off together all stitches and threads on the needle, and crochet one s. c. around the coils of the st.;