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might be left in the yard, somewhat regardless, to be sure, of their fragile nature; she would carry them on her head round about, and occasionally pin them to the earth with a thrust of her horns; and if she found the stable, which was of wood, close and uncomfortable, she now and then walked out of it through the side, but did these things in so unconscious a way that no one could find fault.

She kept on growing fat and fatter-(to continue her history and somewhat anticipate events)—until summer came, and it was necessary to send her to the country. Then the services of another Irishman, of course, were called into requisition, and he started off from the house with her, early one morning in June, to lead her eight miles to her future home at Flushing. Neither himself nor the cow was heard of again till late that night, when, with startled countenance, he related his adventures to my friend Weeville. He had hardly turned the corner before a butcher rushed out and announced that he wanted to buy that cow. Patrick indignantly refused, true to the aristocratic Irish idea that the employer is always above disposing of any thing; but the butcher was irrepressible, and, pulling out his wallet, offered ninety-five dollars for her; but Pat retorted, "You'll not get the likes of her for ninety-five dol

lars." This the would-be purchaser mistook for a haggle over price, and demanded how much she would be sold for, when Patrick, breaking away from him with indignation, answered resolutely, "She is not for sale at all, at all, but going to the country for air and grass."

"But it's an awful time I've had with her," he continued, in his narration. "Sure and didn't she lay down with me twelve times, and didn't I think every blessed time that she would niver get up again? Her tongue hung out a yard, in spite of me watering her at every trough along the road. She kept me ever since tin o'clock this very morning, and would stop to rest whenever she felt like it, until I began to think I shouldn't get home till next day."

Thus Cushy exhibited another evidence of her intelligence. As she had heretofore insisted upon being fed whenever she was hungry, she now had, with equal peremptoriness, demanded rest when she was tired. Fat and unaccustomed to travel, she made the Irishman conform to her views of speed, like the superior being she was, knowing well that he was only sent to wait on and accompany her in her journey. She was evidently pleased with the country, being found next morning up to her knees

in clover; and, had it not been for the attacks of a gadfly, which she resented furiously, she would have led a perfectly happy life. She certainly was a model animal. My presentiments of success were not mistaken, and I felt almost like claiming, with the modest author of "Ten Acres Enough," that my impressions were never wrong.

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IF

CHAPTER II.

A HOUSE, PLANS, AND SPECIFICATIONS.

F there is any one thing on which I do pride myself more than another, it is my ability to plan and lay out a house. No matter how remarkable the shape of the lot may be, I can always devise an admirable arrangement; and if architecture, not law, had been my fate, the public would have been surprised at my productions. To be sure, chimneys have an inconvenient habit of coming up through windows, and windows of getting in the way of partitions, or locating themselves in odd and unsymmetrical places; sometimes the only passage from the kitchen to the front door, after my plan is completed, will turn out to be through every room on the first floor, and occasionally the stairs will be omitted; but these are matters for the practical builder to correct-the great point is to mark out the general scheme scientifically.

Of course, therefore, the first thing to do toward

building my intended house was to prepare the plans. A large house-a huge pile of wood or brick -is an abomination, and it costs so outrageously (the profit or loss was never out of my mind); but there seems to be a limit in reduction of size that can not be surpassed. I at once proceeded to lay out an admirable plan for a house twenty-four feet square, a neat, nice, cosy, comfortable little cottage; and this is an economical size, because it requires precisely two lengths of board. I arranged for a grand hall through the centre, and a piazza round three sides; there were four rooms on each floor, and it would have been perfection had not the parlor and diningroom proved to be only about seven feet by twelve, which, after some careful measurements, was determined to be rather small.

However, the plan had so many recommendations that I determined to make an effort with it. In my younger days I had passed much time in Connecticut, and had there seen houses of the nicest kind, attractive inside and out, and which were said to cost only a few thousand dollars apiece. A friend of mine, residing on Long Island Sound, had imported one, which came to him cut out, sawed and marked, ready to be put up. So, having determined to try something of the same nature, I inquired the

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