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Page 11
[Illustration: HEAT FROM ALL SIDES.]
"By no means; our hall is large and needs a fireplace--one that will
not smoke and will warm not only the hall in very cold weather, but the
whole house when it isn't quite cold enough for steam. The sides and
back will be of iron with an air-chamber behind them, into which fresh
air will be brought from out of doors and come out well warmed at the
sides." (Jill's idea was something like the above figure for the plan.)
"It will be a capital ventilator, too, for the centre of the house.
There will be a damper in the hearth to let the ashes down into the
ash-pit. I suppose a stove would answer, but this will be better
because it won't have to be blacked, and it will last as long as the
house."
"How will it look standing out there all alone by itself?"
"Haven't I told you, my dear, that whatever _is_ well looks well?"
"Yes, but it takes a mighty faith to believe it, and I'm not even a
mustard-seed. What is the little room in the southwest corner for?"
"That is the library, and for an ordinary family it is large enough. It
is twelve feet by fourteen. It will hold three or four thousand books,
a table, a writing-desk, a lounge and three or four easy chairs. More
room would spoil the privacy which belongs to a library and make it a
sort of common sitting-room. Moreover, by drawing aside the porti�res
and opening the doors we can make it a part of the large room when we
wish to; and, on the other hand, when they are closed and the bay
window curtains drawn, instead of one large room we shall have three
separate apartments for three solitary misanthropes, for three
_t�te-a-t�tes_, or for three incompatible groups, not counting the
hall--no, nor the stair-landing, which will be a capital place for a
quiet--"
"Flirtation."
At this point they were interrupted by a telegram from Aunt Melville,
begging them not to begin on George's plan, as she had found something
much more satisfactory.
CHAPTER III.
A FIRST VISIT AND SAGE ADVICE.
They didn't begin to build, from Cousin George's nor from any other
plan, for many weeks. Until the new house should be completed, Jill had
agreed to commence housekeeping in the house that Jack built, without
making any alterations in it, only reserving the privilege of finding
all the fault she pleased to Jack privately, in order, as she said, to
convince him that it would be impossible for them to be permanently
happy in such a house.
"I supposed," said Jack, with a groan, "that my company would make you
blissfully happy in a cave or a dug-out."
"So it would, if we were bears--both of us. As we are sufficiently
civilized, taken together, to prefer artificial dwellings, it will be
much better for us to find out what we really need in a home by actual
experiment for a year or two. You know everybody who builds one house
for himself always wishes he could build another to correct the
mistakes of the first."
"Yes, and when he has done it probably finds worse blunders in the
second. Still, I'm open to conviction, and after our late architectural
tour perhaps my house won't seem in comparison so totally depraved."
[Illustration: AUNT MELVILLE'S AMBITION.]
When they visited it, preparatory to setting up their household
gods--Jack's bachelor arrangements being quite inadequate to the new
order of things--Jack, with a flourish, threw the highly ornamental
front door wide open. Jill walked solemnly in, and, looking neither to
the right nor the left, went straight up stairs.
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