CHAPTER XIX.

TEN YEARS AFTER.

Jack, Jr., and his sister Bessie, were building block houses on the piazza.  Jack was pretending to read the evening paper, in reality watching the builders; and Jill was making no pretense of doing anything else.

“Really Jack, I think Bessie shows more skill in building than her brother.  Her houses look like realities, and they have more grace and dignity than his.”

“Of course.  Haven’t I always said that women would make the best architects if they had a fair chance?  Didn’t you make the plans of this house?  Hasn’t it been all our fancy painted and a great deal more?  There isn’t a stick nor a stone, a brick nor a shingle that I would have changed if we were to build it again.”

“And haven’t I always said that men were more conservative than women? I would be glad to change everything there is in the house to build it all over again, and build it differently.”

“Oh the inconstancy of women!  Even the moon is more constant, for her changes are only superficial and temporary.”

“When I say; ‘I have changed my mind,’ it is only another way of saying, ‘I am wiser to-day than I was yesterday.’”

“I understand; what a Jacob’s ladder of wisdom you must be!  All right; change your mind every day, grow wiser and wiser; I will try to keep the hem of your garments in sight.”

“Have you selected a lot?”

“What for?”

“For a new house.”

“Bless you, my dear husband, I wouldn’t build another house, still less live in it, for all the wealth of the treasury vaults.  Isn’t this our own?  Hasn’t it always been perfectly suited to our wants?  What upon earth are you thinking of?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.  I never think if I can help it.  I have heard that a man ought always to build two houses, one to learn how, the second to correct the mistakes of the first.  I thought perhaps it was the same way with women.”

“This house was exactly right when it was built, it could not have been improved, but that was ten years ago, and a great many things have happened in the last ten years; but, then, a great many more will happen in the next ten, and ten years hence there will be just as many things to change in the houses that are built this year as there are now in those that are of the same age as ours.”

“But how would you change this house if it could be done by a magic wand or by the exercise of faith, and without raising a speck of dust or upsetting the housekeeping affairs for a single minute?”

“I would make it larger for one thing.  Our rooms are too small.  The number of rooms a house contains should depend on the number of people there are to live in it, including all the children, the guests and the servants, with a certain allowance for contingencies.”

“Depending on the hospitality of the family.”