"'MY DEAR NIECE: Since writing you last I have had a most
interesting experience, and hasten to give you the benefit of
it. You remember Mr. Melville's niece married a young attorney
in Tumbledonville; very talented and of good family, but poor,
_desperately_ poor. He hadn't over two or three thousand
dollars in the world, but he has built a marvelous little
house, of which I send you the plans. You enter a lovely hall,
positively larger than, mine, an actual room in fact, with a
staircase running up at one side and a charming fireplace at
the right, built, if you will believe it, of common red bricks
that cost only five dollars a thousand. It couldn't have taken
over two hundred and fifty to build it.--'

[Illustration: THE ATTORNEY'S FLOOR PLAN.]

"Just think of that! A charming fireplace for a dollar and a
quarter!--"

"Communicating with the hall by a wide door beautifully draped
with some astonishingly cheap material is the parlor, fully
equal in every respect to my library, and adjoining that the
dining-room, nearly as large. On the same side is a green-house
between two bay windows, the whole arrangement having a
wonderful air of gentility and culture. I am convinced that you
ought to invest three-fourths of your father's wedding present
in some safe business, and with the remainder build a house
like this, buying a small lot for it, and defer the larger
house for a few years. Keeping house alone with Jack and
perhaps one maid-of-all-work will be perfectly respectable and
dignified; the experience will do you good, and I have no doubt