In binding leaves, flowers, &c., the fine wire should not be cut off until the leaf, or whatever it may be, is complete, as it is desirable to avoid ends and roughnesses.
We could amplify these notices, but we consider that the engravings will be sufficient to show our readers the kind of groups that can be arranged, and suggest to inventive and tasteful minds a multitude of other combinations.
With regard to their adjustment into sprays, or wreath, we can say but little, because that is so much a matter of taste. A light and graceful appearance should be aimed at, and the work neither crowded too closely together, nor left too straggling. It will often be advisable to mount a flower on a couple of inches of the coarse wire, in order to lengthen the stem, and it may then be grouped with a bud, or with spiral shells; but no rules can be laid down in an optional matter like this. The foundation stem, or that from which all the sprays of the headdress given at the commencement of this article, hangs, should be of double coarse wire; and the stems of the sprays of single coarse wire. All are to be bound on with the finest wire, and as neatly and as lightly as is consistent with firmness.
Care must be taken not to tarnish the wire by too much handling, especially with warm hands, or by unnecessary exposure to the atmosphere. When not in use, the reels should always be kept enveloped in silver paper.
The leaves of various sizes, the flowers of different kinds, and the other portions, should be consigned each to the boxes appropriated for them, as fast as they are made, and not all heaped together in one inextricable mass.
In our next article we shall describe the "Composite Rice-Shell-Work," which will present to our lady pupils a variety of ornamental arrangement.
This pleasing art is well worthy the pains and patience of all
"Who in work both _contentment_ and happiness find."
We must now offer a few brief remarks upon certain costumes which appear to us most worthy of our attention and study, for their general elegance and adaptation to the figure. Of the modern Greek we have already spoken. The style of dress which has been immortalized by the pencil of Vandyck is considered among the most elegant that has ever prevailed in this country. It is not, however, faultless. The row of small curls round the face, how becoming soever to some persons, is somewhat formal, and although the general arrangement of the hair, which preserves the natural size and shape of the head, is more graceful than that of the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, we think it would have been more pleasing had it left visible the line which divides the hair from the forehead. With regard to the dress itself: in the first place, the figures are spoiled by stays; secondly, the dress is cut too low in front; and thirdly, the large sleeves sometimes give too great width in front to the shoulders. These defects are, in some degree, counterbalanced by the graceful flow of the ample drapery, and of the large sleeves, which are frequently widest at their lower part, and by the gently undulating line which unites the waist of the dress with the skirt. The Vandyck dress, with its voluminous folds, is, however, more appropriate to the inhabitants of palaces than to the ordinary occupants of this working-day world. The drapery is too wide and flowing for convenience.