HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Bread and milk for invalids should be made by crumbling the bread into a basin, pouring the boiling milk over it and warming it through on the fire in an enamelled saucepan. Care should be taken that there are no lumps or hard crusts.

When a head of long hair has to be washed, the hair should be first plaited and the scalp washed carefully, then the hair washed separately unplaited. This saves many tangles and loss of both hair and temper.

Flowers cut or picked in the early morning last much longer than those gathered later in the day, and, if they are to be sent by post, should be placed in water for a short time before being packed.

When having hair shampooed at a hairdresser’s, be careful to shut your mouth and breathe as little as possible while stooping over the marble basin. Otherwise you run great risk of illness by inhaling sewer gas from the waste pipe which should not be, but is sometimes, connected with a drain.

Stair-carpets should occasionally be taken up, the steps cleaned, and the carpet replaced so that what was on the edge of a step before should be now in the middle. Carpets treated this way will last much longer and not look shabby so soon.

A coal-scuttle should be kept by the kitchen fireplace to hold sifted cinders, and if these are damped and put on where there is a good coal fire, they make a fierce hot fire and save the coals; but they should be well damped with clean water just before using.