"We must, and we'll begin to-morrow."

"Why not this evening?"

"We couldn't see."

"Light the gas."

"Oh, but we must make the plans out of doors on the lot. We shall then
know where every room will be, every door and especially every window.
We must fix the centre of the sitting-room in the most commanding
situation, and be certain that the dining-room windows do not look
straight into somebody's wood-shed. Then, if there are any views of
blue hills and forests far away over the river, I shall be
uncomfortable if we do not get the full benefit of them."

"Don't you expect to have anything interesting inside the house?"

"Except my husband? Oh yes! but it would be a wicked waste of
opportunities not to accept the blessings provided for us without money
and without price, which only require us to stand in the right places
and open our hearts and windows to receive them."

Jill's second lesson was indeed worth learning, even if it cost a
wedding journey. Every house must suit its own ground and fit its own
household, otherwise it can neither be comfortable nor beautiful.

The next morning, armed with a bundle of laths, sharpened at one end,
and equipped with paper, pencil and tape-line, the prospective
house-builders proceeded to lay out, not the house but the plan. They
planted doors, windows, fireplaces and closets, stoves, lounges,
easy-chairs and bedsteads, as if they were so many seeds that would
grow up beside the laths on which their respective names were written
and bear fruit each according to its kind. Later in the day a high
step-ladder was introduced, from the top of which Jill scanned the
surrounding country, while Jack stood ready to catch her if she fell.
The neighbors were intensely interested, and their curiosity was mixed
with indignation when, toward night, a man was discovered cutting down
two of the rock-maple trees that Jill's grandfather planted more than
fifty years before, and which stood entirely beyond any possible
location of the new house.

"This evening, Jack, you must write for the architect to come."

"I thought you were going to make your own plans."

"I have made them, or rather I have laid them out on the ground and in
the air. I know what I want and how I want it. Now we must have every
particular set down in black and white."

Jack wrote accordingly. The architect was too busy to respond at once
in person, but sent a letter referring to certain principles that reach
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