EXHIBITION FANCY AND

NEEDLEWORK.

MISCELLANEOUS.

"Industry! rough power! Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain: Yet, the kind source of every gentle art, And all the soft civility of life."-THOMSON.

THE first engraving represents the centre of a counterpane woven and exhibited (c. 11, No. 42,) by J. Sudworth of Bolton. When our friends are informed that the design is made by small knots such as are generally seen on white counterpanes, they will easily conceive the immense labour bestowed upon this one, because every knot requires to be pulled up by the hand. And therefore in this one alone, it has been performed upwards of eight hundred thousand times. It forms a very pretty crochet pattern for a d'oyley by omitting the scrolls between the points of the star in the centre, and working connecting points for them as well as the other parts of the design. Any of our

fair friends that are ingenious and accustomed to work from designs, will understand what we mean.

Our second engraving is taken from a moulding or cornice, manufactured, in papier mâché, by B. F. Bielefeld, 15 Wellington-street, Strand, London, and exhibited by him (c. 26, No. 157) with a variety of architectural ornaments, frames, &c. The design is very bold, and the grouping very tastefully managed. We have been induced to present this to our readers more particularly, because it is admirably adapted for "Ornamental Leather work."* As Wordsworth says,

"Be this your task

This may be done: 'tis all I ask!"

The third engraving is taken from one of the designs outlined upon canvass, in colours, and exhibited (c. 19, No. 185) by Mr. A. Hall of Manchester. The principal object in producing these canvasses for

shionable kind of work. see Vols. IV. and V. of *For full directions how to practise this fathe Old Series, Family Friend.

points scarlet, the lines enclosing the various compartments, yellow, and the grounding of the compartments cobalt or pale blue.

Our next engraving is taken from one of Mr. J. Sparkes Hall's specimens of his art of boot-making, exhibited (c. 16, No. 163). It is a perforated leather slipper, ornamented with lace rosettes, and tambour-work, and lined with blue silk which shows through the perforations of the leather. It is very pretty, and will no doubt be much admired by the fair sex.

Papier Mâché Moulding -C. F. BIELEFELD, London.

embroidering is to save trouble and ensure correctness in working, because the pattern being outlined upon the canvass, the only thing to be done is to work over it. The above design forms a pretty sofa pillow when worked upon a dark claret ground, the shamrocks, worked green, the centre and

Perforated Leather Slipper, ornamented with tambour-work.-J. S. HALL, Regent-street, London.

Before terminating this paper on Exhibition Work, which is one of our closing series, we must not omit to mention the famous model rag dolls of Madame A. Montanari, the inventor and sole manufacturer of them, who exhibited them with the model wax dolls in (c. 29, No. 122). The average price of the rag dolls range from 6s. 6d. to 30s., but it varies according to the size and style of the dress. We call particular attention to them because they are certainly better than the hard wooden or the wax ones, as we can personally testify from sad experience when a child, having had many a rap upon the head with them. Now the rag dolls are not likely to prove dangerous weapons in the hands of quarrelsome children, because a blow from one of them could not possibly fracture a child's skull, added to which, they look exactly like the waxen ones, without the polish upon their faces.

THE TEA-ROSE.

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.*

THERE it stood, in its little green vase, on a light ebony stand, in the window of the drawing-room. The rich satin curtains, with their costly fringes, swept down on either side of it, and around it glittered every rare and fanciful trifle which wealth can offer to luxury, and yet that simple rose was the fairest of them all. So pure it looked, its white leaves just touched with that delicious creamy tint peculiar to its kind; its cup so full, so perfect; its head

Mrs. Harriet E. Beecher Stowe, the authoress of that remarkably successful work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," is the daughter of Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D., and seems to have inherited much of the splendid talents of her father. She was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, June 15, 1812; and, in 1836, was married to Professor Calvin E. Stowe, of the Theological Seminary of that place. In 1850, Professor Stowe accepted a professorship in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, where the family now reside. Besides the work which has popularized her name far and wide, Mrs. Stowe's writings are found principally in the various literary and religious periodicals of the country. She has not written so much as some of our female authors, but what she has written has left a profound impression. She is remarkable for the qualities of force and clearness. Few readers can resist the current of her argument, and none can mistake her meaning. She possesses also a great fund of wit, and a delicate play of fancy not inferior to our most imaginative writers.

bending as if it were sinking and melting away in its own richness-oh! when did ever man make anything to equal the living, perfect flower!

But the sunlight that streamed through the window revealed something fairer than the rose. Reclined on an ottoman, in a deep recess, and intently engaged with a book, rested what seemed the counterpart of that so lovely flower. That cheek so pale, that fair forehead so spiritual, that countenance so full of high thought, those long, downcast lashes, and the expression of the beautiful mouth, sorrowful, yet subdued and sweet-it seemed like the picture

of a dream.

"Florence! Florence!" echoed a merry and musical voice, in a sweet, impatient tone. Turn your head, reader, and you will see a light and sparkling maiden, the very model of some little wilful elf, born of mischief and motion, with a dancing eye, a foot that scarcely seems to touch the carpet, and a smile so multiplied by dimples that it seems like a thousand smiles at once. "Come, Florence, I say, said the little sprite, "put down that wise, good, and excellent volume, and descend from your cloud, and talk with a poor little mortal."

The fair apparition, thus adjured, obeyed; and, looking up, revealed just such eyes as you expected to see beneath such lids-eyes deep, pathetic, and rich as a strain of sad music.

"I say, cousin," said the "light ladye," "I have been thinking what you are to do with your pet rose when you go to New York, as, to our consternation, you are determined to do; you know it would be a sad pity to leave it with such a scatterbrain as I am. I do love flowers, that is a fact; that is, I like a regular bouquet, cut off and tied up, to carry to a party; but as to all this tending and fussing, which is needful to keep them growing, I have no gifts in that line."

"Make yourself easy as to that, Kate," said Florence, with a smile; "I have no intention of calling upon your talents; I have an asylum in view for my favourite."

"Oh, then you know just what I was going to say. Mrs. Marshall, I presume, has been speaking to you; she was here yesterday, and I was quite pathetic upon the subject, telling her the loss your

favourite would sustain, and so forth; and she said how delighted she would be to have it in her green-house, it is in such a fine state now, so full of buds. I told her I knew you would like to give it to her, you are so fond of Mrs. Marshall, you know."

them; it is a greenhouse flower, and used to delicate living."

"Now, Kate, I am sorry, but I have otherwise engaged it."

"Who can it be to? intimates here."

"Oh, it is only one of my odd fancies." "But do tell me, Florence ?" "Well, cousin, you know the pale little girl to whom we give sewing."

How

"What! little Mary Stephens? absurd! Florence, this is just another of your motherly, old-maidish ways-dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets and knitting socks for all the dirty little babies in the region round about. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling alleys, back of our house, than ever you have in Chesnut - street, though you know everybody is half dying to see you; and now, to crown all, you must give this choice little bijou to a sempstress-girl, when one of your most intimate friends, in your own class, would value it so highly. What in the world can people in their circumstances want with flowers?"

"Just the same as I do," replied Florence, calmly. "Have you not noticed that the little girl never comes here without looking wistfully at the opening buds? And, don't you remember, the other morning she asked me so prettily if I would let her mother come and see it, she was so fond of flowers."

"But, Florence, only think of this rare flower standing on a table with ham, eggs, cheese, and flour, and stifled in that close little room where Mrs. Stephens and her daughter manage to wash, iron, cook, and nobody knows what besides."

"Well, Kate, and if I were obliged to live in one coarse room, and wash, and iron, and cook, as you say-if I had to spend every moment of my time in toil, with no prospect from my window but a brick wall and dirty lane, such a flower as this would be untold enjoyment to me."

"Pshaw! Florence-all sentiment: poor people have no time to be sentimental. Besides, I don't believe it will grow with

"Well, after all, how odd! When one gives to poor people, one wants to give them something useful—a bushel of potatoes, a ham, and such things."

"Why, certainly, potatoes and ham must be supplied; but, having ministered to the first and most craving wants, why not add any other little pleasures or gratifications we may have it in our power to bestow? I know there are many of the poor who have fine feeling and a keen sense of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies because they are too hard pressed to procure it any gratification. Poor Mrs. Stephens, for example: I know she would enjoy birds, and flowers, and music, as much as I do. I have seen her eye light up as she looked n these things in our drawing-room, and yet not one beautiful thing can she command. From necessity,

her room, her clothing, all she has, must be coarse and plain. You should have seen the almost rapture she and Mary felt when I offered them my rose."

"Dear me! all this may be true, but I never thought of it before. I never thought that these hard-working people had any ideas of taste!"'

"Then why do you see the geranium or rose so carefully nursed in the old cracked teapot in the poorest room, or the morning-glory planted in a box and twined about the window. Do not these show that the human heart yearns for the beautiful in all ranks of life? You remember, Kate, how our washerwoman sat up a whole night after a hard day's work, to make her first baby a pretty dress to be baptized in ?"

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Well, well, cousin, I suppose you are right-but have mercy on my poor head; it is too small to hold so many new ideas all at once-so go on your own way." And the little lady began practising a waltzing step before the glass with great satisfaction.

Another scene now awaits description:It was a very small room lighted by only one window. There was no carpet on the floor; there was a clean, but coarselycovered bed in one corner; a cupboard, with a few dishes and plates, in the other; a chest of drawers; and before the window stood a small cherry-stand, quite new; and, indeed, it was the only article in the room that seemed so.

A pale, sickly-looking woman, of about forty, was leaning back in her rockingchair, her eyes closed, and her lips compressed as if in pain. She rocked backward and forward a few minutes, pressed her hand hard upon her eyes, and then languidly resumed her fine stitching, on which she had been busy since morning. The door opened, and a slender little girl of about twelve years of age entered, her arge blue eyes dilated and radiant with delight as she bore in the vase, with the rose-tree in it.

"Oh! see, mother, see! Here is one in full bloom, and two more half out, and ever so many more pretty buds peeping out of the green leaves."

The poor woman's face brightened as she looked, first on the rose and then on her sickly child, on whose face she had not seen so bright a colour for months.

"God bless her!" she exclaimed, unconsciously.

"Miss Florence-yes, I knew you would feel so, mother. Does it not make your

head feel better to see such a beautiful flower. Now you will not look so longingly at the flowers in the market, for we have a rose that is handsomer than any of them. Why, it seems to me it is worth as much to us as our whole little garden used to be. Only see how many buds there are! Just count them, and only smell the flower! Now, where shall we set it up?" And Mary skipped about, placing her flower first in one position and then in another, and walking off to see the effect, till her mother gently reminded her that the rose-tree could not preserve its beauty without sunlight.

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"Oh yes, truly," said Mary; "well, then, it must stand here on our new stand. How glad I am that we have such a handsome new stand for it; it will look so much better." And Mrs. Stephens laid down her work, and folded a piece of newspaper, on which the treasure was duly deposited. 'There," said Mary, watching the arrangement eagerly, "that will do-no, for it does not show both the opening buds; a little further around-a little more; there, that is right;" and then Mary walked around to view the rose in various positions, after which she urged her mother to go with her to the outside, and see how it looked there. "How kid it was in Miss Florence to think of giving this to us!" said Mary; though she had done so much for us, and given us so many things, yet this seems the best of all, because it seems as if she thought of us, and knew just how we felt; and so few do that, you know, mother."

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What a bright afternoon that little gift made in that little room! How much faster Mary's fingers flew the livelong day as she sat sewing by her mother; and Mrs. Stephens, in the happiness of her child, almost forgot that she had a headach, and thought, as she sipped her evening cup tea, that she felt stronger than she had done for some time.

That rose! Its sweet influence died not with the first day. Through all the long, cold winter, the watching, tending, cherishing of that flower awakened a thousand pleasant trains of thought, that beguiled the sameness and weariness of their life. Every day the fair growing thing put forth some fresh beauty-a leaf, a bud, a new shoot, and constantly awakened fresh