The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-02

asked, that a wood fire and a cheerful 1 parlor have any thing at all to do with
 a girls popularity"
 Miss Petunia nodded and said: .a "t do. You have often heard it said
 that food is the open sesame to a mans
 heart, but I say it's fire. Fire is a sort of
 necromancer that touches up into some
 thing almost akin to beauty, if not to
 real loveliness, the plainest sort of
 girl. Why, I've seen even ordinary look
 ing girls that nobody would glance at
 second time in the garish daylight, con- verted by the glare of blazing hickory fire into really exquisite pictures. There s | something about a wood fire that throws | forth it's forest spell. The very aroma is a subtle incense sent up to the God Of the Hearthstone. It's very unusual man
 who sees a girl first before an open fire.
 a picture of domesticity, who altogether forgets her"
 "Is that why?' asked Nancy, "engage- ments always follow house parties in the
 country? I never thought of that, and yet now I recall how Betty Lane told me Jack proposed to her one afternoon when we had all come in from long automobile drive. and the rest went upstairs to dress for d9nner, and he and she stayed and talked in front of the big wood fire in the library?'
 "A big, open. blazing fire is the best possible medium to quickly cement an ac- quaintance Haven't you ever noticed how nine people out of 10, when they enter room where there's an open fire, just ache to get to the tongs the poker or some thing so they can fool with it? I say that given a beautiful log wood fire in &
 cozy room and soft shaded lamp on tah nd inS I hali nearly any girl could capture even the crustiest old bachelor"
 "She has only to sit and look into the fre?' Nancy asked.
 "Of course she must do more than that" Miss Petuna said haughtilv "She ought
 to have some sort of feminine needlework in her hands. If I were arranging the stage properties I would see to that first of all, and then I'd also see that the man had a nice comfortable chair to lounge in with hassock at his feet and-and-I
 wouldn't insist upon his smoking, but I'd let him if he wished to, and m wager ID man could steel his heart against such g. picture"
 q can see him now blowing engagement
 with my eyes shut"
 "When I begin to talk to you about wood fires and making a man comfort
 able" said Miss Petuna, tits carrying coals to Newcastle. You already know" No, really, Miss Petunia," Nancy de-
 clared, "I don't believe I've ever thought of wood fires in the light that you've pie
 tured them to me today, and it's Leap
 Yeaar, too, and"
 Some people know things without being told,' said Miss Petunia Angelface, delib- erately. without even knowing that they know them, but to prove that am right. and that the Delaware girls are right, if G,,fe +lat auto A1a see that two engagements have been an- nounced already"
 Good work" said Nancy. 'but al the same time I guess some of those Della ware men who are caught and roasted be- fore wood fire and inveighed into pro- posing won't be above turning the circum-
 stances into joke after they get mars ried and declare that they were barbe- l cued on wood fire merely to make merry for a bunch of Delaware girls-eh?"