An open fire makes such delightful silences, if you ever noticed.

When you sit in a room without it, the gaps in the conversation make everybody seem dull; the last comer rises with embarrassment and thinks he must be going, and you wish that some one would say the next thing and keep the ball rolling.

The open fire arranges all these little matters with a perfect tact and grace all its own.

It is acknowledged to be the centre of attraction, and the people gathered about it are only supernumeraries.

It blazes and crackles and snaps cheerily, the logs break and fall, the coals glow and fade and glow again, and the dull man can always poke the fire if his wit desert him.