A frame-house here is built upon exactly the same plan as ours, so far as regard the piles, framework, outside wall and roof; but the plan of it varies much. Every man is his own architect, or at least that business lies between him and the carpenter who builds for him. One sees some very singular examples sometimes. Rows of isolated rooms connected by a verandah; houses all gable-ends and wings; all sorts in fact. A good house will have the outside walls boarded up and down, with battens covering the chinks, instead of weather-boarding like our shanty. The inside walls and ceilings will be lined with grooved and jointed planking, so as to make the house what is styled bug-proof. There is a broad verandah round the whole or part of the house. There are brick chimneys inside the house, though, as they are usually an item of considerable expense, this is not invariable, and chimney out-puts like ours will be seen not infrequently. There are various rooms, and possibly an upper storey, which may or may not have a balcony above the verandah. It is a common practice to have French windows, opening upon the verandah, instead of doors. Such houses can be made very elegant as well as comfortable. They are painted and decorated with carvings outside, and the inside walls may be painted, papered, or varnished. Furniture and upholstery of all kinds is, of course, procurable in Auckland; so that one can have all the comfort of an English home, if one is able to pay for it. Necessarily, the cost of house-building will vary considerably, according to the style and size of residence. A cottage with two to four rooms will cost L100, or less. The average price paid for houses in our district--large roomy houses for prosperous family-men, contracted for with a carpenter, to build, paint, and thoroughly finish off--runs from L250 to L500, or something like it. Kauri timber is used almost exclusively in the North, so that we may say we live under the shadow of the Kauri pine. We keep up the usages of society so far as to pay visits occasionally, especially to houses where there are ladies. You have got to live in a country where petticoats are few and far between, where there is not one woman to twenty or thirty men, as is the case here, in order to thoroughly appreciate the delights of feminine society. People at home don't know how to treat a lady; they are too much used to them. Why, there are actually more women than men in England!