“I like the notion of putting them beside the fireplace,” said Jack.  “When they are both running, it would be like hitching a pair of horses before an ox-team or a steam engine attachment to an overshot water-wheel.  It means business.  Uncle Harry improves.  What next?”

“He expounds his theories of light and shade, of plumbing, sewer-gas and malaria, and casually remarks that ’the variation of the north magnetic pole and the points of compass are not yet fully understood in their relation to human welfare.’”

“I should hope not!  He must be writing under the influence of a full moon.  Let us try a fresh correspondent.”

“Very well.  Here is Aunt Melville’s latest, with a new set of plans.  There will be neither trancendentalism nor vain repetitions here: 

“’MY DEAR NIECE:  Since writing you last I have had a most interesting experience, and hasten to give you the benefit of it.  You remember Mr. Melville’s niece married a young attorney in Tumbledonville; very talented and of good family, but poor, desperately poor.  He hadn’t over two or three thousand dollars in the world, but he has built a marvelous little house, of which I send you the plans.  You enter a lovely hall, positively larger than, mine, an actual room in fact, with a staircase running up at one side and a charming fireplace at the right, built, if you will believe it, of common red bricks that cost only five dollars a thousand.  It couldn’t have taken over two hundred and fifty to build it.—­’

[Illustration:  THE ATTORNEY’S FLOOR PLAN.]

“Just think of that!  A charming fireplace for a dollar and a quarter!—­”

“Communicating with the hall by a wide door beautifully draped with some astonishingly cheap material is the parlor, fully equal in every respect to my library, and adjoining that the dining-room, nearly as large.  On the same side is a green-house between two bay windows, the whole arrangement having a wonderful air of gentility and culture.  I am convinced that you ought to invest three-fourths of your father’s wedding present in some safe business, and with the remainder build a house like this, buying a small lot for it, and defer the larger house for a few years.  Keeping house alone with Jack and perhaps one maid-of-all-work will be perfectly respectable and dignified; the experience will do you good, and I have no doubt you will enjoy it.  It will not only be a great economy in a pecuniary way, but society is very exacting, and a large house entails heavy social burdens which you will escape while living in a cottage.  This will give you plenty of time to improve your taste in art, which is indispensable at present.  There will be great economy, too, in the matter of furniture.  A large house must be furnished according to prevailing fashions, but in a small one you may indulge any unconventional, artistic fancy you please.’”

“If Aunt Melville’s advice and plans could be applied where they are needed they would be extremely valuable.  Suppose we found a society and present them to it for gratuitous distribution.”