sufficient freeway for the cook.  Many families do no home baking, and where fruit and vegetables are preserved the basement is utilized.  Compactness in the kitchen saves hundreds of steps in the course of a day, and though it is difficult for us to forget the spacious room thought necessary by our parents, we may well learn, for our own comfort, to profit by the modern reasoning that opposes waste space.  Still, it is better to defy modern tendencies and even to pain the architect than that the faithful house-keeper who clings tenaciously to the old idea should be made miserable.  Some persons feel perpetually cramped in a small room, whereas others only note the snugness of it.

THE SLEEPING ROOMS

The general well-being of the family is more directly affected by the character of the bed chambers than by any other department of the house.  However we may permit ourselves to be skimped in the living rooms, it is imperative that the sleeping apartments should be large—­not barnlike, of course—­well lighted, dry, and airy.  Three large rooms are in every way preferable to four small ones.  It is, to be sure, sometimes difficult to put the windows where they will let in the sunlight, the registers where they will heat, and the wall space where it will permit the sleeper to have fresh air without a draught.  But marvels in the way of ingenious planning have been evolved where necessity, the mother of invention, has ruled; and assuredly there is no greater necessity than a healthful bedroom.

The children’s bedroom in the house of six to eight rooms is likely to be utilized as a nursery or playroom on rainy days or in winter.  It should have an abundance of sunlight.  The largest and best room of all should be used by the heads of the household.  To reserve the choicest apartment for the chance guest is an absurdity that sensible people have abandoned.  If we must, we may surrender our room temporarily to the visitor, but the persons who live in a house twelve months of the year are entitled to the best it affords.  Flat living has taught us to make use of all our rooms, and perhaps its influence is against hospitality; but we need not neglect that very important feature of a happy home in doing ourselves simple justice.

THINKING IT OUT

If we would be quite sure of it—­to use a Hibernianism—­we should live in our house at least a year before it is built.  We need an imagination that will not only perceive our castle in all its stages of construction but will picture us in possession.  Advice is not to be disdained, and a good architect we shall find to be a blessing; but the happiness of our home will be in double measure if we can feel that something of ourselves has gone into its creation.  And this something we should not expect to manifest genius, or even originality, but tasteful discrimination.