The baby was asleep, so I sat down on the lounge, took John’s head in my lap, and tried to explain what you meant.  I told him I had heard enough about brick, and didn’t care what you said about wood.  We should hold to our original plan and have a stone house; but you didn’t know where it was to be, and wished us to be thoroughly posted, then use our common-sense and decide for ourselves what it should be.  In some places it would be most absurd to build of wood; in others equally so to build of anything else.  The matter of cost, too, might affect our choice, and that you knew nothing about.

In my efforts to restore his equanimity, I had forgotten my broom and dust-pan, lying in the middle of the floor; forgotten John’s big boots, not only on the lounge, but directly on one of Jane’s most exquisite tidies; forgotten—­actually forgotten—­the baby, and was treating my disturbed husband in genuine ante-matrimonial style, when, of all things to happen at this very crisis, in marched Sister Jane and her cavalier!  Simultaneously the baby awoke with a resounding scream.

Now there are three things that my notable sister holds in especial abhorrence,—­untidy housekeeping, sentimental demonstrations between married people, and crying babies; and here they all were in an avalanche, overwhelming, not only herself, but a most prepossessing young man, who, for all I knew, was viewing me with a critic’s eye, as a possible sister-in-law, and wondering how far certain traits are universal in families.

You will think I stand in great awe of Sister Jane; and so I do, for though she is two years younger than I, unmarried, and, candidly, not a bit wiser, she is one of those oracular persons who, unlike Mr. Toots, not only fancy that what they say and do is of the utmost consequence, but contrive to make other people think so, too.

It is one of my husband’s notions that nothing in the house is too good to be used every day by those he loves best, meaning baby and I. So I have no parlor—­no best room always ready for exhibition—­into which I could send them, but my inspiration came just at the right moment.

“Don’t, Jane, don’t, for pity’s sake, bring all that rubbish into the sitting-room!” She had her hands full of moss and flowers.  “Please take it out on the piazza.  John will carry you some chairs.”  And Jane was positively too much astonished to say a single word, but turned and walked out the way she came in, driving her dutiful escort before her.

Fortunately, our piazza is eight or nine feet wide.  I wouldn’t have one less than that.  So John took out the chairs, and was properly presented to the young gentleman.

Half an hour later, when order once more prevailed, I went out to find Jane finishing a lovely moss basket, and the gentlemen amiably building air-castles.  John had been reading your last letter aloud, omitting your reply to Jane’s question, and was advocating brick in a most edifying fashion.  As I sat down, the young man inquired very seriously if there would be any difficulty in making additions to a brick house, in case one wished to begin in a small way.  John gave one of his queer looks, and guessed not; I, for a wonder, kept still; and Jane blushed brilliantly, remembering that she had already asked the same question on her friend’s account.