,
but we will have fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and
string, if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too; but in
our house we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no more
breathe the foul air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will use
a neighbor's tooth-brush and hair-brush. Such is the first essential
of "our house,"--the first great element of human health and
happiness,--AIR.

* * * * *

"I say, Marianne," said Bob, "have we got fireplaces in our
chambers?"

"Mamma took care of that," said Marianne.

"You may be quite sure," said I, "if your mother has had a hand in
planning your house, that the ventilation is cared for."

It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a house had been a
Gothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility of
adapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern
needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke as
from a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seized
the plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile I
went on with my prelection.

The second great vital element for which provision must be made in
"our house" is FIRE. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire,
but fire in all its extent and branches,--the heavenly fire which God
sends us daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic
fires by which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our
nightly darkness.

To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God's gift of vital
air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be
hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on
ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished
to keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box; it
has no fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue;
but, oh, joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside
folding-shutters, so that in the brightest of days we may create there
a darkness that may be felt. To observe the generality of New England
houses, a spectator might imagine they were planned for the torrid
zone, where the great object is to keep out a furnace draught of
burning air.

But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do
we not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from
October to June all families, whether they actually h