all about the same size, or if you cannot do this put the smaller pieces at the back of the room and the larger ones toward the front.

Next there will be the drawing room to furnish, then the library, the dining room and pantry, not forgetting the kitchen and laundry. Use two pages for each room, leaving several between the different rooms, so that the book shall not be too full at the front and empty at the back. If it does not close easily remove some of the blank pages. Cut out the different pieces of furniture as carefully as possible, paste them in as neatly as you can, and you will have a book house to be proud of.

Flowered papers will be the best for the bedrooms, or plain wall papers in light colours; and with brass bedsteads, pretty little dressing tables and curtains made of thin white tissue paper (which looks so like white muslin), they will be as dainty as can be. Now and then through the book it is interesting to have a page with just a bay window and a broad window seat with cushions and pillows—as if it were a part of a long hall. Hang curtains of coloured or figured paper in front of it so that they will have to be lifted if anyone wants to peep in. When you have finished the bathroom, playroom, maids' rooms and attic there will still be the piazza, the garden, the stables and the golf course (covering several pages), to arrange. If you have a paint box and can colour tastefully you will be able to make your book house even more attractive than it is already.

Planning a book house

United States Mail

Fig. 2

This is a fine game for rainy days. Any boy can make it and if he likes to use pencil and paint brush he will find it as interesting to make as to play with. Get a small pasteboard box about six inches long by three wide and an inch deep—such as spools of cotton come in. Cover it with white paper, pasting it neatly and securely. Then draw and colour on the lid a mail bag, which should almost cover it—either a brown leather sack or a white canvas one with "United States Mail" on it in large blue letters. Do not forget to draw the holes at the top of the bag and the rope which passes through them to close it. You have now something to hold the counters for the game. These are made to look like letters and postal cards. To make the letters, rule a set of lines three-quarters of an inch apart, across a box or cover of shiny white cardboard. Then another set, crossing the others at right angles. These should be an inch and a quarter apart. The postal cards are ruled in the same way (on real, unused postal cards), so as to make oblong spaces. Cut these out with a sharp pair of scissors. There should be thirty cardboard pieces and at least twenty-five of the postal cards. Now draw on the cards, with a fine pen and black ink, marks like those on a postal card—the stamp in the corner, the lettering and the address. Make pen lines on all of the pasteboard letters like Fig. 2 and paint a tiny red dot on each to look like sealing-wax. On the reverse side of one write something to look like an address, and paint in large letters "D.L.O.," (to stand for Dead Letter Office) in the corner. Six other letters are also addressed in the same way, but have instead of "D.L.O." a red stamp and a blue one, the latter wider than it is high, to represent a Special Delivery stamp. Nine pieces should also be cut from brown cardboard in the shape shown in Fig. 3 to represent packages. Paint three red stamps in the corner of each of these.

Rules for Playing United States Mail

Fig. 3

Two or more persons can play this game. When the pieces are equally divided among the players, the one on the right of the dealer throws a piece on the table, saying as he does so, "I send a letter to B——," for example, and then counts five, not running the numbers in together, but as deliberately as a clock ticks. Before he has stopped counting, the player on his right must name a city or town beginning with B. If he succeeds in doing this he wins the piece, otherwise it goes to the player who threw it. When all the pieces have been played each player counts his score.

The value of the pieces is as follows: Each postal card counts one, each letter two, each package six. The Special Delivery letters are worth ten points each, and the person who is so unfortunate as to have the letter with "D.L.O." upon it loses ten points from his score.

Flying Rings