it is doubtless wisest to have some of their central folds made with movable slats, but they give a charming sense of security and seclusion when the wintry blasts roar around our castle.  On the other hand, the light outside blinds, that shake and rattle and bang when the stormy winds “do blow, do blow,” are a fair substitute for the cooling shade of forest-trees.  You may have learned that life is a succession of compromises.  Building in New England certainly is.  No sooner do we get nicely fortified with furnaces, storm-porches, double windows, and forty tons of anthracite, than June bursts upon us with ninety degrees in the shade.  Then how we despise our contrivances for keeping warm, and bless the ice-man!  We wish the house was all piazza, and if it were not for burglars and mosquitoes, would abjure walls and roof and live in the open air.  Just here is our dilemma.  We go “from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strands” and back again every twelve months, whether we will or no, and are obliged to live in the same house through it all.  It’s really a desperate matter.  I’ve been to the ant and the beasts and the birds.  They recommend hibernating or migration, but our wings are too short for the one, our fur too thin for the other!

Seriously, you must not forget to prepare for extremes of climate.  Fortunately the walls that most thoroughly resist the cold are effective against the heat.  The doors and windows—­the living, breathing, seeing, working part of the house—­demand the twofold provision.  You must have double windows in winter, to be taken off (laid away and more or less smashed up) in summer; outside blinds to ward off the summer sun, which may, in their turn, be removed when we are only too glad to welcome all the sunshine there is.  The vestibules—­portable storm-porches are not to be tolerated—­must also be skilful doorkeepers, proof against hostile storms, but freely admitting the wandering zephyrs.  Piazzas are not so easily managed.  We like them broad and endless in July and August, but the shadows they cast we would fain remove when the very trees fold away their sunshades.  Often a platform, terrace, balcony,—­whatever you please to call it, practically a piazza without a roof,—­is the best thing to have, for this will not keep the sun from the windows, when comfort requires it may be shaded by a movable awning, and by its sunny cheerfulness it will lengthen our out-door enjoyment two or three months in the year.

You are still floundering helplessly in the kitchen.  I’ve no doubt Sister Jane has excellent ideas on the subject,—­probably knows ten times as much about it as you do.  Why not ask her to arrange matters for you?

LETTER XXVI.

From Fred.

Experience keeps A dear school.