For Hiding the Grate for summer, nothing is more effective than plants and ferns. A huge jar, or old-fashioned pitcher, filled with grasses, ferns, cat-tails, and the wonderfully pretty things that can be found in the woods, gives a cheerful and homelike look to a room. The hearth can be filled with mosses ; a piece of looking-glass used for a miniature lake, with sea shells, and a rustic gypsy pot filled with vines, trailing over its edge. The prettiest fancy for filling up the empty grate for an evening affair, is to fill it in with growing plants, put into the natural grate, and not placed upon the hearth, where they imperil their own safety as well as the petticoats of the dancers. A fern, or palm or two for the back- ground, and hydrangeas or other bright-hued blossoms in front, have a good effect, filling in the interstices with moss. If flowers be not avail- able, soft white cotton pulled lightly apart, may fill the fireplace. This powdered with glass or alum, with green sprays at intervals, makes a brilliant showing. FIREPLACES AND GRATES. 177 For country houses a board made to fit the fireplace is the convenient arrangement. This is covered with pale pink or blue farmer's satin. A large wreath of flowers and evergreens, or an immense horseshoe of blossoms, fills the center, and from this depend delicate sprays of ivy or smilax. If the fireplace be one of the high, old-fashioned ones, matters are improved by a curtain on either side to match the screen, looped back with sprays of flowers. The shelf above should have a flounce of the same material edged with lace or quilling, and looped up at intervals by clusters of flowers, from which droop festoons of green. When the furniture is removed from a room for dancing, or a large reception, any feeling of bareness is taken away from the room by hav- ing the chimney-piece handsomely " dressed," as our English cousins call it. One of the prettiest and most effective means of hiding the grate during the summer, and one especially adapted to rooms where the Japanese-fan-umbrella-parasol craze is encouraged, is to place a brilliant parasol opened wide in front of it. It allows a free current of air from the chimney, so desirable for the proper ventilation of the room, and its bright and harmoniously mingled hues give a touch of color to the room where it is most needed. The small Japanese parasols, such as are sold for five cents apiece, have been also used for this purpose. The fireboard is first covered with black glazed paper, and the parasols, widely opened, are fastened upon it, arranged in the shape of a diamond, star or square. The handles are cut off when opened wide, just enough being left to go into a hole in the fireboard. Paper fans are also effective arranged on a dark fireboard, the handles pointing to a common center, the circle being either an entire one, or else a half-moon. The "over doors " should be filled in with fans or parasols in the same style ; and, with a dainty Canton matting on the floor, you will have made a very pretty beginning for an oriental room. In addition to this, there are very pretty patterns that come in imita- tion of Japanese silk, which are very rich and beautiful, the effect being the same as that of painting. These are put together with bands of velvet and fastened in the fireplace.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

For Hiding the Grate for summer, nothing is more effective than plants and ferns. A huge jar, or old-fashioned pitcher, filled with grasses, ferns, cat-tails, and the wonderfully pretty things that can be found in the woods, gives a cheerful and homelike look to a room. The hearth can be filled with mosses ; a piece of looking-glass used for a miniature lake, with sea shells, and a rustic gypsy pot filled with vines, trailing over its edge. The prettiest fancy for filling up the empty grate for an evening affair, is to fill it in with growing plants, put into the natural grate, and not placed upon the hearth, where they imperil their own safety as well as the petticoats of the dancers. A fern, or palm or two for the background, and hydrangeas or other bright-hued blossoms in front, have a good effect, filling in the interstices with moss. If flowers be not available, soft white cotton pulled lightly apart, may fill the fireplace. This powdered with glass or alum, with green sprays at intervals, makes a brilliant showing. [illustration: FIREPLACES AND GRATES. 177] For country houses a board made to fit the fireplace is the convenient arrangement. This is covered with pale pink or blue farmer's satin. A large wreath of flowers and evergreens, or an immense horseshoe of blossoms, fills the center, and from this depend delicate sprays of ivy or smilax. If the fireplace be one of the high, old-fashioned ones, matters are improved by a curtain on either side to match the screen, looped back with sprays of flowers. The shelf above should have a flounce of the same material edged with lace or quilling, and looped up at intervals by clusters of flowers, from which droop festoons of green. When the furniture is removed from a room for dancing, or a large reception, any feeling of bareness is taken away from the room by having the chimney-piece handsomely " dressed," as our English cousins call it. One of the prettiest and most effective means of hiding the grate during the summer, and one especially adapted to rooms where the Japanese-fan-umbrella-parasol craze is encouraged, is to place a brilliant parasol opened wide in front of it. It allows a free current of air from the chimney, so desirable for the proper ventilation of the room, and its bright and harmoniously mingled hues give a touch of color to the room where it is most needed. The small Japanese parasols, such as are sold for five cents apiece, have been also used for this purpose. The fireboard is first covered with black glazed paper, and the parasols, widely opened, are fastened upon it, arranged in the shape of a diamond, star or square. The handles are cut off when opened wide, just enough being left to go into a hole in the fireboard. Paper fans are also effective arranged on a dark fireboard, the handles pointing to a common center, the circle being either an entire one, or else a half-moon. The "over doors " should be filled in with fans or parasols in the same style ; and, with a dainty Canton matting on the floor, you will have made a very pretty beginning for an oriental room. In addition to this, there are very pretty patterns that come in imitation of Japanese silk, which are very rich and beautiful, the effect being the same as that of painting. These are put together with bands of velvet and fastened in the fireplace.

The household (of the Detroit free press)