The House that Jill Built after Jacks had Proved a Failure | Page 9

by
fourteen. It will hold three or four thousand books, a table, a writing-desk, a lounge and
three or four easy chairs. More room would spoil the privacy which belongs to a library
and make it a sort of common sitting-room. Moreover, by drawing aside the portières and
opening the doors we can make it a part of the large room when we wish to; and, on the
other hand, when they are closed and the bay window curtains drawn, instead of one
large room we shall have three separate apartments for three solitary misanthropes, for
three _tête-a-têtes_, or for three incompatible groups, not counting the hall--no, nor the
stair-landing, which will be a capital place for a quiet--"
"Flirtation."
At this point they were interrupted by a telegram from Aunt Melville, begging them not
to begin on George's plan, as she had found something much more satisfactory.

CHAPTER III.
A FIRST VISIT AND SAGE ADVICE.
They didn't begin to build, from Cousin George's nor from any other plan, for many
weeks. Until the new house should be completed, Jill had agreed to commence
housekeeping in the house that Jack built, without making any alterations in it, only
reserving the privilege of finding all the fault she pleased to Jack privately, in order, as
she said, to convince him that it would be impossible for them to be permanently happy
in such a house.
"I supposed," said Jack, with a groan, "that my company would make you blissfully
happy in a cave or a dug-out."
"So it would, if we were bears--both of us. As we are sufficiently civilized, taken together,
to prefer artificial dwellings, it will be much better for us to find out what we really need
in a home by actual experiment for a year or two. You know everybody who builds one
house for himself always wishes he could build another to correct the mistakes of the
first."
"Yes, and when he has done it probably finds worse blunders in the second. Still, I'm
open to conviction, and after our late architectural tour perhaps my house won't seem in
comparison so totally depraved."
[Illustration: AUNT MELVILLE'S AMBITION.]
When they visited it, preparatory to setting up their household gods--Jack's bachelor
arrangements being quite inadequate to the new order of things--Jack, with a flourish,
threw the highly ornamental front door wide open. Jill walked solemnly in, and, looking
neither to the right nor the left, went straight up stairs.
"Hello!" Jack called after her, "what are you going up stairs for?"
"I supposed you expected everybody to go to the second floor," said Jill, looking over the
bannister, "or you wouldn't have set the stairs directly across the front entrance."
"I do, of course," Jack responded, following three steps at a time. "And now will you
please signify your royal pleasure as to apartments?"
"Oh, yes! The first requisite is a room with at least one south window."
"Here it is. A southerly window and a cloudy sky--two windows, in fact. And look here:
see what a glorious closet. It goes clear up to the ceiling."
"It isn't a closet at all; only a little cupboard. It wouldn't hold one-half of your clothes nor
a tenth part of mine. And there's no fireplace in the room--not even a hole for a

stovepipe."
"Furnace, my dear. We shall be warmed from the regions below. There's the register."
"I see. But where shall the bed stand? On these two sides it would come directly in front
of a window; on this side there isn't room between the two doors; on that, there's the 'set
bowl'--I hate 'set bowls'--and the furnace register in the floor."
[Illustration: NO PLACE FOR THE BED.]
"That's so. I never had any bed in this room. Try the dining-room chamber; that has a
south window. The bed can stand on the north side and the dressing table over in the
other corner."
"Yes, in the dark, with a window behind my back. Oh! Jack, why didn't you get a wife
before you planned your house?"
"I did try."
"You did! You never mentioned it to me before. What is this little room for?"
"Why, nothing in particular. It came so, I suppose--part of the hall, you know; but it
wouldn't be of any use in the hall, so I made a room of it. It will hold a cot bed if we
should happen to have a house full of company."
"It will never be needed for that with three other guest rooms; but I see what can be done.
You know I promised not to make any alterations; but destruction isn't alteration, and as
this little room is beside the front chamber, with only the little cupboards between, a part
of the partition between the rooms can