I confess women do a great deal for the appearance
of things. When the mistress is absent, this room, although
everything is here as it was before, does not look at all like the
same place; it is stiff, and seems to lack a soul. When she returns,
I can see that her eye, even while greeting me, takes in the
situation at a glance. While she is talking of the journey, and
before she has removed her traveling-hat, she turns this chair and
moves that, sets one piece of furniture at a different angle,
rapidly, and apparently unconsciously, shifts a dozen little
knick-knacks and bits of color, and the room is transformed. I
couldn't do it in a week.

THE MISTRESS. That is the first time I ever knew a man admit he
couldn't do anything if he had time.

HERBERT. Yet with all their peculiar instinct for making a home,
women make themselves very little felt in our domestic architecture.

THE MISTRESS. Men build most of the houses in what might be called
the ready-made-clothing style, and we have to do the best we can with
them; and hard enough it is to make cheerful homes in most of them.
You will see something different when the woman is constantly
consulted in the plan of the house.

HERBERT. We might see more difference if women would give any
attention to architecture. Why are there no women architects?

THE FIRE-TENDER. Want of the ballot, doubtless. It seems to me that
here is a splendid opportunity for woman to come to the front.

THE YOUNG LADY. They have no desire to come to the front; they would
rather manage things where they are.

THE FIRE-TENDER. If they would master the noble art, and put their
brooding taste upon it, we might very likely compass something in our
domestic architecture that we have not yet attained. The outside of
our houses needs attention as well as the inside. Most of them are
as ugly as money can build.

THE YOUNG LADY. What vexes me most is, that women, married women,
have so easily consented to give up open fires in their houses.

HERBERT. They dislike the dust and the bother. I think that women
rather like the confined furnace heat.

THE FIRE-TENDER. Nonsense; it is their angelic virtue of submission.
We wouldn't be hired to stay all-day in the houses we build.

THE YOUNG LADY. That has a very chivalrous sound, but I know there
will be no reformation until women rebel and demand everywhere the
open fire.

HERBERT. They are just now rebelling about something else; it seems
to me y