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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.'

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"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.

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

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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

name of the maker, and sent him my plan, requesting an estimate. Instead of returning me an estimate by which I could readily calculate for a little increase of size, the stupid fellow replied that he would come to New York and show me some plans. of his own. I wrote a severe letter in answer, saying that I wanted an estimate, not a plan. Since then I have not heard from the gentleman, and believe he is still studying out the beauties of my arrangement, and will, one of these days, come before the world as a great architect on the strength of my abilities.

Not to be put down or deterred, however, I made other plans, some of which had the kitchen outside, some in the basement, and others on the first floor. In one there was a piazza on all sides, in another there was no piazza whatever; some had the servants in the garret, others placed them in the cellar. I was ready to erect an entirely new house, or to convert an old barn that was near the premises into two or three houses. There was nothing that my resources were not equal to, and the drawings would have furnished quite a new stock in trade for a young architect.

My friends gave me their advice. They respectively assured me that I could not live with my kitchen in a wing, and could not exist if it were any

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