I believe the world has gone quite crazy on the subject of fresh air. In the next century people will think they must sleep on the house-tops, I suppose, or camp out in tents in primitive style. Nothing is talked about but ventilators, and air-tubes, and chimney-draughts. One would suppose that fire-places were invented expressly for cooling and airing a room, instead of heating it. There was no such fuss when I was young; in those good old times these airy notions had not come into fashion. Where the loose window-sashes rattled at every passing breeze, and the wind chased the smoke down the wide-mouthed chimney, nobody complained of being stifled. There were no furnaces then to spread a summer heat to every corner of the house. No, indeed! We ran shivering through the long, windy entries, all wrapped in shawls, and hugging ourselves to retain the friendly warmth of the fire as long as possible. Far from devising ways of letting _in_ the air, we tried hard to keep it _out_ by stuffing the cracks with cotton, and closely curtaining the windows and bed. Even then, the ice in the wash-basin, and the electricity which made our hair literally stand on end in the process of combing, and the gradual transformation of fingers into thumbs, showed but too plainly that the wintry air had penetrated our defences. When we crowded joyfully round a crackling, sparkling wood-fire, even while our faces glowed with the intense heat, cold shivers were creeping down our backs, and sudden draughts from an opening door set our teeth chattering. I often wished myself on a spit, to revolve slowly before the fire until thoroughly roasted. Not from any want of air, I assure you, we children were always breaking panes of glass on the bitterest days, and the glazier was never known to come under a week to replace them. Why people should wish to revive, and live through again, the miseries of such a frost-nipped childhood, I cannot imagine.