to, what it’s for, and that it won’t burst or spring a leak with fair usage.  I don’t call it just the thing to drive a tenpenny nail square through a lead pipe, pull it out, and say nothing about it.  You want to be on hand, too, when the trimmings are put on, and see that they are not too high or low, or fixed so you will bruise your knuckles every time you pull out the drawers or open the cupboard doors.  Speaking of cupboards, there’s no end to the bother if you don’t just camp down in the pantry and stay there till the top shelf is up and the bottom drawer slides in its groove.  In spite of our efforts, Mrs. John says there’s no place for her tallest covered dish except the top shelf, which she can’t reach without a step-ladder.  You’ll never know whether you are specially bright or the joiners extra stupid, but it’s certain your way won’t be their way, whichever is right.  I say the man who pays his money should take his choice.  But I haven’t time to tell the whole story.  It’s the same thing from first to last.  The only sure way of having a thing done well is to do it yourself; the next best is to tell some one else precisely how to do it and then watch them till it’s done.  The worst of these little blunders is, that they won’t improve with age.  They stare at you every time you see them, and they’ll rise up before your great-great-grandchildren, monuments of your carelessness and ignorance.

I told you my house was half done when it was well begun; now that it is almost done it seems to me only fairly begun.

Yours,
JOHN.

LETTER XLII.

From the Architect.

SAVED BY CONSCIENCE.

Dear John:  We are just beginning to learn the importance of color.  I don’t allude to the wonderful revelations of the spectroscope almost passing belief, but the new departure in the useful art of house-painting.

The old weather-stained, unpainted walls were not unpleasant to see; even the unmitigated red, that sometimes made a bright spot in the landscape, like a single scarlet geranium in the midst of a lawn, had a kind of amiable warmth, not to be despised; but there is no accounting for the deluge of white houses and green blinds that prevailed a few years ago.  If nature had neglected our education in this respect we might be excused for our want of invention.

With infinitely varied and ever-changing colors smiling upon us at all times and in all places, it is blind wilfulness not to see and strive to imitate them.  We need not look to the sky nor even to the woods in their summer brightness or autumn glory.  The very ground we tread glows and gleams with the richest, softest tints of every hue and shade.  Look through a hole in a piece of white paper and try to match on the margin the color you find.  Turn in a dozen different directions, avoid the trees and the sky, and you will have, in summer or winter, a dozen different