nufacturer's
catalogue. Indeed, you can find whole books on the subject, large books
too, which it will be interesting and profitable for you to study; but
first it is necessary to lay out the chimneys to accommodate the sizes
and styles to be chosen. You will easily understand that a grate for
burning coal alone, especially hard coal, may be much smaller than a
fireplace to hold hickory logs that it takes two men to carry; but the
heat of anthracite coal would soon destroy the lining of a fireplace
adapted to an ordinary fire of wood. It cannot be necessary to remind
you that the best open fireplaces, whether for wood or coal, are those
which, instead of sending three-fourths of the heat up the chimney
flue, give it out from all sides, to be saved either directly or by
being conveyed to an adjoining or upper room. It is also possible to
make a fireplace that will accommodate either wood or coal, but like
all compromises this is attended with certain disadvantages. If large
enough for wood it is too large for hard coal. The smoke flue for a
coal fire may also be smaller, the hotter fire causing the stronger
draught. Coal ashes, too, ought to be dropped through the hearth into
ash pits below, even from the fires of the upper rooms. To "take up the
ashes" of a wood fire is not so troublesome. These are some of the
reasons why it is necessary to determine the kind and number of your
fireplaces before the plans of the chimneys are drawn.'"

[Illustration: IN THE MIDDLE RANK.]

"Why not make an appropriation of fifty dollars apiece for each grate,
mantel and hearth, and have him do the best he can with it?"

"We can fix that as an average price, but shall want some better than
others, and must mark in each room whether we wish to provide for wood,
for coal, or for both. That is, whether we want 'set' grates or open
fireplaces with andirons or something of that kind."

"Oh, do have andirons. _Please_ have andirons," said Bessie. "You know
you can go out into the country and buy them for old brass of the
farmers who haven't the remotest idea of their value. They keep them up
in those dear old musty garrets covered with dust and spider webs."

"Certainly, we will have a few andirons and several spinning-wheels and
moony clocks and solid old carved oak chests that for generations have
been full of moths and food for worms. I never happened to come across
one of those old bonanza garrets, but I suppose there are plenty of
th