BE HONEST AND KEEP WARM.


The architect went home to translate the instructions he had received
into the language that builders understand. Jack and Jill established
themselves in the house that Jack built. The proposed amendments were
indefinitely postponed; Jill having consented to take the house
temporarily as she had taken Jack permanently--for better or
worse--only claiming her reserved right, in the case of the house, of
privately finding all the fault she pleased. Even the staircase, so
favorable to a swift descent, remained unchanged, and in their own room
the bed stood squarely in the middle of the floor. Jack averred that
this was intended when the house was planned, because the air is so
much better in the centre of a room, and there is not so much danger of
being struck by lightning.

One day there came a cold, gloomy rain on the wings of a raw east wind,
and after Jack had gone to his office it occurred to Jill that a fire
on the hearth in the parlor, which they used as a common sitting-room,
would be exceedingly comfortable, but on removing a highly ornamental
screen that served as a "fireboard," she found neither grate nor
fireplace, only a blank wall plastered and papered. Her righteous
wrath was kindled, not because she was compelled to get warm in some
other way, but by the fraudulent character of the chimney-piece. "I can
imagine nothing more absurdly impertinent," she declared to Jack when
he came home, "than that huge marble mantel standing stupidly against
the wall where there isn't even a chimney for a background. As a piece
of furniture it is superfluous; as a wall decoration it is hideous; as
a shelf it is preposterous; as a fireplace it is a downright lie. If