few minutes as the three drew lines and rubbed
them out.

Presently Brother Tom came in. "Well, for ever!" he exclaimed, with
the inevitable laugh. "What are you people all about? Have you all
gone house-mad? Are you, too, going to build a house, Gert?"

"No, I'm just helping Susie: she can't get any plan to suit her."

"Why don't you call on me, Susie? Let me have a pencil and a scrap of
paper: I can plan a house in the half of no time."

"Here," Susan answered, furnishing the required materials, and
enjoying, meanwhile, the thought of the discomfiture which, as she
felt sure, awaited these volunteer architects.

"Do see mother's plan!" laughed Gertrude after a while, peeping over
that lady's shoulder. "Her kitchen is large enough for a prosperous
livery-stable, and it has ten windows; and here's the parlor--nothing
but a goods-box; and she hasn't any way of gettin; to the second
floor."

"Put in an elevator," said Brother Tom.

This drew Gertrude's attention to Tom's sketch, so she went across,
and looked it over. Man-like, he had left out of his plan everything
in the way of a pantry or closet, though he had a handsome
smoking-room and a billiard-hall.

Not at all disconcerted by the criticisms of his plan, Tom proceeded
with wonderful contrivance to run a partition with his pencil
across one end of his roomy smoking apartment for pantry and ladies'
clothes-presses.

"That's just like a man," Gertrude said. "He'd have all the dishes and
all the ladies' dresses toted through the smoking-room."

"Well, see here," Tom said: "I can take closets off this bedroom;" and
the division-line was quickly run.

"And, pray, whose bedroom is that supposed to be?" Gertrude asked. "It
might answer for a retired bachelor who has nothing to store but an
extra shirt: it wouldn't do for a young lady with such hoops as they
wear these days. She couldn't squeeze in between the bed and washstand
to save her flounces. You ain't an architect, Tom: that's certain."

"Well, now, let's see your plan," challenged the gentleman; and he
began to read from Gertrude's paper: "'Parlor, sewing-room--' Now
that's extravagant, Gert. I think your women-folks might get along
without a special sewing-room. Why can't they sew in the dining-room?"

"That's handsome, and very gallant," answered Gertrude. "Your men can
have a billiard-room and a smoking-room, while my poor women can't
even have a comfortable place for darning the men's stocking