The weeks which followed the acquisition of my two deserted cottages were the most delightful I have ever spent.  First of all, there was the question of structural alterations to be considered.  In my opinion the living-room of the house is the chief consideration.  It should be a room to live in, the focus of the whole life of the household.  For this reason it should be large and airy, covering the whole site of the house as nearly as possible.  One large room is infinitely to be preferred to two or three small rooms; it is healthier, and much more cheerful.  Space and air are most needed in the room which is most in use.  It is of no consequence that the bedrooms should be small; one’s active hours are not spent in them, and a window left wide open summer and winter will provide an ample supply of oxygen in the smallest chamber.  What can be more absurd than the arrangement of a modern London villa?  It is usually cut up by partition walls into a number of small rooms, not more than one of which is in constant use.  Pretension takes the place of comfort.  Mrs. Grundy must have a ‘drawing-room’ or die!  It is a kind of holiest of holies, too beautiful for normal occupation, full of gimcrack chairs that cannot be sat upon, and decorative futilities which give it the aspect of a miscellaneous stall at a ‘rummage sale.’  Such a room is very well as a withdrawing-room, its proper use; but as a room into which no one withdraws it is absurd.  As I expected to keep no company, and needed no room into which to withdraw, I was able to get rid of this apartment.  Moreover, in a very small house, common sense demanded that every room should be really and thoroughly used.

Fortunately the fireplaces of my two cottages were against the outer or gable ends, and not against the partition wall, as is commonly the case.  I had only to remove this partition wall, supporting the ceiling by a strong beam, and I had a room about twenty-four long by fifteen in breadth.  At the back of this room were two small kitchens, only one of which was needed.  By widening the doorway leading to one of them to double its breadth, I gained another room about ten feet square.  This made my library, by which I mean not a room in which I ever sat, but a room entirely devoted to the housing of my books.  I had the walls entirely lined with books, making and staining the bookshelves with my own hands.  Across the widened doorway from which the door had been removed hung a warm curtain, so that it was to all intents and purposes a part of my living-room.  I took infinite and almost childish delight in the arrangement of this living-room.  I had brought not a single article of domestic furniture with me from London.  Such furniture as I had—­chairs, tables, couch, sideboard, and so forth—­would have looked out of place in the country, and moreover it was better economy to sell them.  I sold them very well in a London auction-room, getting almost