n sitting-room,
would be exceedingly comfortable, but on removing a highly ornamental
screen that served as a "fireboard," she found neither grate nor
fireplace, only a blank wall plastered and papered. Her righteous
wrath was kindled, not because she was compelled to get warm in some
other way, but by the fraudulent character of the chimney-piece. "I can
imagine nothing more absurdly impertinent," she declared to Jack when
he came home, "than that huge marble mantel standing stupidly against
the wall where there isn't even a chimney for a background. As a piece
of furniture it is superfluous; as a wall decoration it is hideous; as
a shelf it is preposterous; as a fireplace it is a downright lie. If
our architect suggests anything of the kind he will be dismissed on the
instant."

[Illustration: THE POOR BUT MODEST ATTORNEY'S COTTAGE]

"Don't you think the room would look rather bare without a mantel? You
know it's the most common thing in the world to have them like this. I
can show you a hundred without going out of town."

"Common! It's worse than common; it is vulgar, it is atrocious, it is
the sum of all villainies!" said Jill, her indignation rising with each
succeeding epithet. "A fireplace is a sacred thing. To pretend to have
one when you have not is like pretending to be pious when you know you
are wicked; it is stealing the livery of a warm, gracious, kindly
hospitality to serve you in making a cold, heartless _pretense_ of
welcome."

"I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Jack protested with exceeding
meekness. "Such mantels were all the fashion when this house was built,
and fashions in marble can't be changed as easily as fashions in paper
flowers."

"There ought not to be 'fashions' in marble, but of course it was
fashion. Nothing else than the blindest of all blind guides could have
led people into anything so hopelessly silly and unprincipled. I shall
never enjoy this room again," she continued, "knowing, as well I know,
that yonder stately piece of sculpture is a whited sepulchre, a
delusion and a snare. I shall feel that I ought to unmask it the moment
a visitor comes in, lest I should be asked to make a fire on the hearth
and be obliged to confess the depravity in our own household."

[Illustration: A DOUBLE TEAM.]

"Now, really, my dear, don't you think you are coming it rather strong,
if I may be allowed the expression? Isn't it possible that your present
views may be slightly tinged by the