He had not arrived, but they found a ponderous package of plans from
Aunt Melville, with an explanatory note, a letter from Cousin Bessie
admonishing Jill that her new home ought to be "a perfect poem,
pervaded and perfumed by a rare feeling of tender longing and homely
aspiration," and another from her father's oldest sister.

[Illustration: GROUND FLOOR OF AUNT MELVILLE'S AMBITION.]

[Illustration: FIRST FLOOR OF AUNT MELVILLE'S AMBITION.]

"For fifty years," Aunt Jerusha wrote, "I have lived in what would now
be called an old-fashioned house, though it was new enough when I came
to it, and I always think of the Scripture saying when I hear about the
many inventions that men have sought out and are putting into houses
now-a-days. The danger is not so much from the inventions themselves as
from what they lead to. They promise great things, but I've learned to
be suspicious of anything or anybody that makes large promises. I've
learned, too, that realities sometimes go by contraries as well as
dreams. The poorest folks are often the richest, and the greatest
saving often turns out to be the greatest waste. Air-tight stoves saved
the wood-pile, but they gave us colds and headaches. So your uncle put
them away and we went back to the fireplaces. Then came the hot-air
furnaces, which seemed so much less trouble than open fires, but taking
care of the open fires wasn't half so troublesome as taking care of
sick folks; and the same thing we learned to our bitter cost of the
plumbing pipes that creep around like venomous serpents and promise to
save so many steps. Perhaps they do, but it seems to me that much of
our vaunted labor-saving is at best only a transfer. We work all the
harder at something else or compel others to work for us. When I began