[Illustration:  FIRST FLOOR PLAN OF “THE OAKS.”]

“The old rule of two negatives applies.  Even a one-story house must have a roof, and the breadth of this makes a roof large enough to hold not only the kitchen but the servants’ room on the same upper level.”

“A kitchen up stairs!” exclaimed Jack, for once startled into solemnity.

“Aunt Melville considers this the crowning glory of the plan.  Owing to this elevation of the cooking range there is no back door, no back yard, no chance for an uncouth or an unsightly precinct at either side of the house.”

“That would be something worth living for.  I think, Jill, we had better examine these plans a little farther.”

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI.

A NEW WAY OF GETTING UP STAIRS AND A NEW MISSIONARY FIELD.

“The question of getting up stairs,” said Jack, as they continued the study of the one-story plan, “is at least an interesting one.  It seems to be accepted as a foregone conclusion that modern dwelling houses, even in the country, where the cost of the land actually covered by the house is of no consequence, must be two stories at least above the basement; but I doubt whether this principle in the evolution of domestic habitations is well established.  Between the aboriginal wigwam, whose first and only floor is the bare earth itself, and the ‘high-basement-four-story-and-French-roof’ style, there is somewhere the happy medium which our blessed posterity—­blessed in having had such wise ancestors—­will universally adopt as the fittest survivor of our uncounted fashions.  I fancy it will be much nearer to this one-story house, with the high basement and big attic, than to the seven-story mansard with sub-cellar for fuel and furnace.  Still the tendency during the last fifty years has been upward.  Our grandfathers preferred to sleep on the ground floor; we should expect to be carried off by burglars or malaria if we ventured to close our eyes within ten feet of the ground.  Our city cousins like to be two or three times as high.  Under these circumstances building a one-story house would be likely to prove a flying-not in the face of Providence, but, what is reckoned more dangerous and discreditable—­flying in the face of custom.  Humility isn’t popular in the matter of house-building.”

“I am not afraid of custom, and have no objection to a reasonable humility,” said Jill, “but I never once thought of burglars.  If a house has but one floor I think it should be so for from the ground as to be practically a ‘second’ floor.  The main point is to have all the family rooms on one level.”

“That is, a ‘flat.’”

“Yes, one flat; not a pile of flats one above another, as they are built in cities, but one large flat raised high enough to be entirely removed from the moisture of the ground, to give a pleasant sense of security from outside intrusion and to afford convenient outlooks from the windows.  One or two guest rooms, that are not often used, might be on a second floor, under the roof, if there was space enough.”