“That suits me perfectly,” said Jack; “but I am amazed at Aunt Melville.  Never before did she make such a concession even to great genius.  Never before have I felt inclined to agree with her; but the conviction has grown upon me of late that the new house is in danger of being too much like other houses.  If a fellow is really going in for reform, I like to have him go the whole figure.  What do you say to beginning anew and building such a house as no mortal ever built before—­something to make everybody wonder what manner of people they are who live in such a habitation—­something to convince our neighbors that we are no weak-minded time-servers, but are able to be an architectural as well as domestic law unto ourselves—­something to make them stop and stare—­a sort of local Greenwich from which the community will reckon their longitude—­’so many miles from the house that Jill built’?”

“My dear, did it ever occur to you that you cannot be too thankful for a wife who is not blown about by every wind of new doctrine?  I do like the plan of ‘The Oaks’ exceedingly, not only for itself, but for the spirit of it, for its breadth and freedom.  It seems to me a charming illustration of the true gospel of home architecture.  There is no thoughtless imitation of something else that suits another place and another family.  Neither does it appear that the owner tried to make a vain display for the sake of ‘astonishing the natives.’  He knew what he wanted, and built the house to suit his wants, using the simplest, the cheapest and the most durable materials at hand in the most direct and unaffected manner.  Did you notice in the sketch of the keeping-room fireplace the little gallery passing across the end of the room above the entrance to the sitting-room?  Probably you thought that was built for purely ornamental purposes, but it isn’t.  It is simply the walk from the kitchen to another part of the attic, which can be most conveniently reached by this interior bridge.  Of course it adds to the interest and beauty of the room, but it was not made for that purpose, and, as I understand the matter, it is all the more beautiful because it was first made to be useful.  There is another thing in this house—­the elevator—­which, queerly enough, we do not often find in houses of more aspiring habit, where it would he of even greater value.  It is amazing to me that housekeepers will go on tugging trunks, coal-hods and heavy merchandise of all kinds up stairways, day after day and year after year, when a simple mechanical contrivance, moved by water, or weights and pulleys, would save us from all these heavy burdens.  Think of the bruised knuckles, the trembling limbs that stagger along with the upper end of a Saratoga ‘cottage,’ the broken plastering at the sides, the paper patched with bright new pieces that look ‘almost worse’ than the uncovered rents, and the ugly marks of perspiring fingers.”

[Illustration:  THE BIG FIREPLACE IN THE KEEPING ROOM.]