my lap, and tried to explain what you meant. I told him I had heard
enough about brick, and didn't care what you said about wood. We
should hold to our original plan and have a stone house; but you
didn't know where it was to be, and wished us to be thoroughly posted,
then use our common-sense and decide for ourselves what it should be.
In some places it would be most absurd to build of wood; in others
equally so to build of anything else. The matter of cost, too, might
affect our choice, and that you knew nothing about.

In my efforts to restore his equanimity, I had forgotten my broom and
dust-pan, lying in the middle of the floor; forgotten John's big
boots, not only on the lounge, but directly on one of Jane's most
exquisite tidies; forgotten--actually forgotten--the baby, and was
treating my disturbed husband in genuine ante-matrimonial style, when,
of all things to happen at this very crisis, in marched Sister Jane
and her cavalier! Simultaneously the baby awoke with a resounding
scream.

Now there are three things that my notable sister holds in especial
abhorrence,--untidy housekeeping, sentimental demonstrations between
married people, and crying babies; and here they all were in an
avalanche, overwhelming, not only herself, but a most prepossessing
young man, who, for all I knew, was viewing me with a critic's eye,
as a possible sister-in-law, and wondering how far certain traits are
universal in families.

You will think I stand in great awe of Sister Jane; and so I do, for
though she is two years younger than I, unmarried, and, candidly, not
a bit wiser, she is one of those oracular persons who, unlike Mr.
Toots, not only fancy that what they say and do is of the utmost