_Mantel-piece_ (Vol. ix., pp. 302. 385.).--In old farm-houses, where the
broad, open fireplace and hearth still exist, a small curtain, or rather
valance, is often suspended from below the mantle-shelf, the object
apparently being the exclusion of draughts and smoke. May not the use of
this sort of _mantel_ have caused the part of the fireplace from which it
hangs to be called the mantel-piece?