e plainest possible, which unites many
of the best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the ground
plan of that house we saw in Brighton?"

"Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil, "an
inexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw."

[Illustration: House Blueprint]

"This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, have
been built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirements
which I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very
pleasant attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried into
each story. The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower,
where a fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and which
all the year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply from
the furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, and
requires no more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The
brightness and cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters
is incredible."

* * * * *

But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must be
thoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, and
have a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences
of vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be no
leaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetable
exhalations poison the air. With these precautions such a plot will
soften and purify the air of a house.

Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessed
window might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipe
at the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with a
mixture of fine wood-soil and sand, for the top stratum. Here ivies
may be planted, which will run and twine and strike their little
tendrils here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of a
bower; the various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous
with blossoms. In windows unblessed by sunshine--and, alas! such are
many--one can cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of
which there are many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodland
flowers.

Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem most
wearisome, the common blue violet, wood anemone, hepatica, or
rock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. The
common partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit an