“Oh, do have andirons. Please have andirons,” said Bessie.  “You know you can go out into the country and buy them for old brass of the farmers who haven’t the remotest idea of their value.  They keep them up in those dear old musty garrets covered with dust and spider webs.”

“Certainly, we will have a few andirons and several spinning-wheels and moony clocks and solid old carved oak chests that for generations have been full of moths and food for worms.  I never happened to come across one of those old bonanza garrets, but I suppose there are plenty of them lying around and just running over with these antique treasures.  Jim, can’t I hire you to go out among the unesthetic heathens and buy up a few loads of heirlooms and other relics of former greatness?  We shall want some old associations in the new house, and if we haven’t any of our own we must buy some.”

“I don’t think I know much about such things.  Why don’t you go to a furniture store and get what you want first-hand?  Second-hand furniture always looks shabby and out of date.  However, if Miss Bessie could go with me to pick out things, I wouldn’t mind taking a drive into the country to see what we could find.”

[Illustration:  THE WORTH OF A COSY COTTAGE.]

“Now, really, wouldn’t you mind it?  How enchanting!  It will be delightful to be associated with the new house.  I know we shall find some lovely things.”

“All right.  You shall have Bob and the express wagon to-morrow.  What next, Jill?”

“’I should be glad to know your feeling in regard to height of rooms, but shall not promise fully to agree with you.  My purpose is to make the principal rooms of the first story ten and a-half or eleven feet high.’”

“Oh, how dreadful!  I don’t know how high eleven feet is, but I’m sure they ought not to be more than seven feet.”

“I thought you were going to say not less than fourteen,” said Jim.

“Oh, no, indeed!  Low rooms are so deliciously quaint and cosy.”

“But I should be all the time expecting to hit my head.”

“You wouldn’t think of that for a moment if you could only feel the influence of Kitty Kane’s library.  It is a copy of an old English bar-room, or something of that sort, I don’t exactly remember what, but it is in the Queen Anne style, and it’s too lovely for anything.  Please have low rooms, Jill.”

Jill continued reading:  “For rooms of ordinary sizes and devoted to ordinary domestic purposes, that is high enough for use, for comfort and for any reasonable amount of decoration, either upon the walls themselves or in the shape of pictures or other ornaments.  You will certainly think it enough when you are climbing the stairs to the rooms of the second story.  It may be practicable to reduce the height of some of the smaller apartments, but it is usually much more convenient to keep the ceilings of the main rooms of uniform height, even if this does upset the ‘correct