d ruler the work of rearranging the plans, according
as the ideas of the young couple veer and vary.

One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his library
for a closet in the bedroom, but resists like a Trojan. The next
morning, being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bob
yields, and my wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet come
off the library, and a closet is constructed. But now the parlor
proves too narrow,--the parlor wall must be moved two feet into
the hall. Bob declares this will spoil the symmetry of the latter;
and, if there is anything he wants, it is a wide, generous, ample
hall to step into when you open the front door.

"Well, then," says Marianne, "let's put two feet more into the width
of the house."

"Can't on account of the expense, you see," says Bob. "You see every
additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so
much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc."

And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers
how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of
the walls.

"I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, "here, take your two
feet in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the
hall stairs;" and he dashes heavily with his pencil.

"Oh, Bob!" exclaims Marianne, "there are the kitchen pantries! you
ruin them,--and no place for the cellar stairs!"

"Hang the pantries and cellar stairs!" says Bob. "Mother must find a
place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and
cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves;
they can be put _somewhere_ well enough. No fear but you will find a
place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great
enormous kitchen for?"

"It is not any larger than is necessary," said my wife, thoughtfully;
"nothing is gained by taking off from it."

"What if you should put it all down into a basement," suggests Bob,
"and so get it all out of sight together?"

"Never, if it can be helped," said my wife. "Basement kitchens are
necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear
to afford any other."

So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next
morning an inspiration visits my wife's pillow. She is up and seizes
plans and paper, and, before six o'clock, has enlarged the parlor very
cleverly by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the
prospective house,