For the dance nothing could be prettier than a floral cotillion or German. After a few ordinary dances, have the German led by an older person. All the favors should be of flowers, both real, artificial, and of tissue paper. Make boats, wreaths, fans, wands with bunches of flowers at the end, and countless other things that will come to mind. Decorate with garlands of paper flowers; wind the staircase and the chandeliers with them.

Serve the ice cream in tiny flowerpots, with a flower in the top, and the cake may be ornamented with candy roses. For the first dance pair the couples by finding duplicate flowers. A piano with a good performer will furnish the music, if you do not want the expense of an orchestra.

A Retrospect Party

HERE is an entertainment the details of which are so old that they are really the newest thing to be done. Invitations were sent out to twenty intimate friends asking them to come costumed as children. The following couplet was written at the top of each invitation:

"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night."

On the evening designated the women arrived in short skirts, pantalets, hair in braids or flowing with round combs; the men appeared in knickerbockers, blouses, and "Little Lord Fauntleroy" suits.

"Stage Coach," "Button, Button, Who's got the Button ?" and "Blind Man's Buff" were played with the fervor of the long ago. All sorts of childish games were recalled and old songs, such as "Where Is Now the Merry Party?" "Nellie Gray," etc. When supper was announced the table and refreshments were in keeping with the games. A doll was the centrepiece, the favors were all kinds of toys. Each "girl" and each "boy" had a tiny basket of old-fashioned candy mice and hearts,

with a stick of peppermint candy which was tied on the handle. A bib was at each plate instead of a napkin, also a "pusher" and a baby spoon. Books were placed on some of the chairs to make them high enough. Mush and milk was served in blue bowls, with slices of toast, ginger cookies, and doughnuts fried in shape of dolls; animal crackers and sandwiches completed this simple repast. Every one pronounced it the jolliest affair imaginable, and the hostess said she had never entertained with so little worry.

A House-Warming

A HOSTESS going into her new home had planned this clever house-warming. The invitations had in one corner a snapshot of the house and requested your presence at "the hanging of the crane," "the smoking of the peace pipe" and "the lighting of the hearth fire." When the guests arrived they were met by a courier, who conducted them to the coatroom and then to the living-room. When all had arrived, the host, with due pomp and ceremony, lit the fire, and some one read Longfellow's "Hanging of the Crane." The next move was to the library, where the same ceremony of lighting the fire was gone through, and the motto carved on the mantel was read aloud:

"Old wood to burn,

Old friends to trust,
Old books to read."

The music-room came next, the piano being opened and "Auld Lang Syne" being sung, also "Home, Sweet Home." In this manner the upstairs rooms were visited, the dining-room being reserved until the last. After the hearth fire had been lighted the guests were seated around the table. Each oaken beam in the ceiling bore a motto, which the guests read, and after discussing a delicious repast of individual oyster pies, celery salad, coffee, brown bread, sandwiches, and maple mousse, the pipe of peace was lighted and passed to the men,

and a loving cup to the ladies; and so the new home was consecrated to the family and friends who, as one writer says, are the "ornaments of a home."

The following verse was written on the place cards:

"Peace to this house, when we shall enter in!

Here let the world's hoarse din

Against the panels dash itself in vain,
Like gusts of Autumn rain;

Here, knowing no man's sway,

In the brief pauses of the fight,

Let music sound, and love and laughter light
Refresh us for the day."

Children's Parties

IN the first place, do not make the mistake of asking too many. Fourteen is a good number, or ten, for little people need a great deal of individual attention. If possible have one or two friends to assist in the entertainment. Such games as "Going to Jerusalem," "Drop the Handkerchief," "Here we go round the Mulberry Bush," "London Bridge,” and "Pussy wants a Corner," are always favorites with the children, and never seem to lose their novelty.

Most of the games are more interesting if played to music. Provide a low table with red chairs, such as are used in kindergartens and infant-class Sunday-school rooms.

Red candles, with a bowl of scarlet flowers, and red candles in the cake in rose holders, make the table very pretty. Small red-paper holders come to contain bonbons, which should be sugar peppermints for the wee guests.

Place cards may be made by pasting dainty childish pictures on red cardboard, using black, gold, or white ink for lettering the names and date.

Invitations for children's parties may be written on the quaintly decorated paper that comes especially for the purpose, or small-sized note paper may be used. Refreshments should be simple: plain sandwiches, cocoa, animal crackers, bread

sticks. Some of the Swiss milk chocolates are as delicious as bonbons. Serve ice cream in ramakins and there should be small cups and spoons.

Bibs are appreciated by the mothers, while paper napkins should also be provided, as the children love the gay colors, especially the Japanese ones that come folded in the shape of animals.

A Doll Party

GIRLS are not usually as fond of games as boys, so invite them to a Doll Party. Provide a dozen inexpensive dolls (or let each child bring her own doll), then collect a lot of pretty scraps, with scissors, needles, and thread, and for an hour let the children sew they will thoroughly enjoy it. For refreshments serve ice cream in cups covered by a dolly dressed in crepe tissue paper; the full skirt goes over the cup or glass, and the dolly stands upright; it does not take long to dress the dolls. Give one to each child for a souvenir.

Or, have a Cutting and Pasting Party. Collect pretty pictures with which to make scrapbooks, and good pictures suitable for cutting into odd pieces from which to make puzzles. Make a blank book from pieces of plain smooth paper, then let the children illustrate the book from advertisements; nearly every article under the sun may be found in magazine advertisements.

A number of these books and puzzles may be made, also paper dolls, and sent to amuse sick children in hospital wards and institutions.

A Stork Party

COMING events cast their shadows before, and the rustling of a stork's wings gives the up-to-date hostess an opportunity of giving a very novel and altogether attractive affair. All the world loves a baby, and I am sure when the little strangers

arrive, they will be all the happier on account of the good time their mothers had at this Stork Luncheon.

There were four honored guests and six intimate friends, and they had conspired with the hostess to make the party a success. On the four chairs at the table bibs were tied; the favors were dainty celluloid rattles, and white storks bore the place cards in their bills; but at the four plates each bird had a baby done up in a small square of linen. The table centrepiece was a gilt cradle, with a canopy of dotted swiss tied with pink ribbons. Tiny pink rosebuds were scattered over the table with maidenhair ferns. The napkins were folded like doll babies and were pinned with safety pins. Candles, fairy lamps, and a number of little night lamps gave the illumination, while advertisements of all the baby foods adorned the walls; these had been cut from magazines and mounted on cardboard. There were also numerous advertisements of go-carts and high-chairs. The menu consisted of celery soup, bread sticks, chicken cutlets, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, and tomatoes; a fruit salad, ice cream served in round rings, with tiny bottles labelled "Paregoric," angel food and chocolate, with the usual accessories of nuts, bonbons, and olives.

In the living-room after the repast the guests found a large stork, some five feet high, which disgorged various-sized packages when its wings were pressed. As the parcels were marked it did not take long for each one of the four to discern "whose was whose." There were dainty bootees, caps, bibs, and all sorts of things for the diminutive wardrobe, and a merry time ensued. At five the hostess served what she said was camomile tea, also a concoction made from anise seed, and "educator" crackers. On departing the guests received small boxes, which, on opening, revealed a soap baby and a doll's nursing bottle. The hostess made the large stork from cardboard, cotton wadding, some feathers which a kindly butcher saved, a bottle of mucilage, and black paint, with a good stork model to work from. The bird was held steady on the floor by white ribbons fastened to a hook in the ceiling.