I liked Lizzie, and liked the children, and liked to have them with us, especially as there were no little Logans of my own playing in the yard; but I thought three spare rooms ought to be enough for them, until I reflected that my mother-in-law, Mrs. Erastus Lord, now occupied one of the spare rooms, leaving a surplus of only two, so I still kept silent until Cilly, thinking she had succeeded in convincing me that of all tucked-up, inconvenient, disreputable houses in town, ours was the worst, went on to say that she thought and her mother thought, and her grandma thought, (grandma was the old Mrs. Lord of all, Mrs. Erastus, senior,) that we ought to “go through a set of repairs;” I think that’s the way she worded it, and as brother John had left her two thousand dollars “_to do just exactly what she pleased with_” she had made up her mind to repair, and was going to do it while I was away, so as to save me all the trouble of the muss, and—and—Cilly got a little confused here and stammered a good deal, and finally went on rapidly: “You see, I have quite decided, and mother has seen the men, and they are coming Monday morning, and it will all be done beautifully before you get back, and you’ll never know the old hut at all.” I felt a little hurt to hear her stigmatize, as the old hut, what we had thought so pretty and nice when we took possession of it ten years ago, but had no time to protest before she added: “I didn’t mean to tell you, as I wished to see how surprised you would be when you returned; but I was afraid something might happen, the carpenters get sick, or you come home sooner than you intended, and so I had to tell you. See, here is the plan. I had an architect come and make it the day you were in New York. Isn’t it lovely, and such an improvement?” I looked at the paper which she held toward me, and saw on it a drawing which reminded me of one of the boats of the White Star Line, it was so long and narrow, with chimneys and smoke-stacks and gables jutting out everywhere. “Don’t you like it John?” Cilly asked, with a most rueful face, and I replied: “Why, yes, I dare say it is nice, but you see I haven’t the least bit of building genius, and less imagination, so I’ve no idea what it’s to be.” “Why, John, what a stupid; that’s the new piazza, and maybe the front door will have to be moved, and that’s the new gable, and that’s the conservatory, and here is our room right over the kitchen.” “Over the kitchen!” and I involuntarily sniffed as I thought of onions, and codfish, and boiled cabbage, each one of which was a favorite dish of mine, though I did not like the smell in my sleeping room. Cilly understood my meaning and hastened to say: