Can anybody tell why country people so universally and pertinaciously persist in living in the _rear of the house_? Can anybody tell why the front door and windows are never opened, save on Fourth of July and at Thanksgiving time? Why Zedekiah, and Timothy, and Jonathan, and the old farmer himself, must go _round_ the house in order to get _into_ it? Why the whole family (oblivious of six empty rooms,) take their “vapor bath,” and their meals, simultaneously, in the vicinity of a red hot cooking range, in the dog-days? Why the village artist need paint the roof, and spout, and window frames bright crimson, and the doors the color of a mermaid’s tresses? Why the detestable sunflower (which I can never forgive “Tom Moore” for noticing) must always flaunt in the garden? Why the ungraceful prim poplar, fit emblem of a stiff old bachelor, is preferred to the swaying elm, or drooping willow, or majestic horse-chestnut. I should like to pull down the green paper window-curtains, and hang up some of snowy muslin. I should like to throw wide open the hall door, and let the south wind play through. I should like to go out into the woods, and collect fresh, sweet wild-flowers to arrange in a vase, in place of those defunct dried grasses, and old-maid “everlastings.” I should like to show Zedekiah how to nail together some bits of board, for an embryo lounge; I should like to stuff it with cotton, and cover it with a neat “patch.” I should like to cushion the chairs after the same fashion. Then I should like, when the white-haired old farmer came panting up the road at twelve o’clock, with his scythe hanging over his arm, to usher him into that cool, comfortable room, set his bowl of bread and milk before him, and after he had discussed it, coax him (instead of tilting back on the hind legs of a hard chair,) to take a ten-minutes nap on my “model” sofa, while I kept my eye on the clouds, to see that no thunder shower played the mischief with his hay. I should like to place a few common-sense, practical books on the table, with some of our fine daily and weekly papers. You may smile; but these inducements, and the comfortable and pleasant air of the apartment, would bring the family oftener together after the day’s toil, and by degrees they would lift the covers of the books, and turn over the newspapers. Constant interchange of thought, feeling and opinion, with discussions of the important and engrossing questions of the day, would of course necessarily follow. The village tavern-keeper would probably frown upon it; but I will venture to predict for the inmates of the farm-house a growing love for “home,” and an added air of intelligence and refinement, of which they themselves might possibly be unconscious. MADAME ROUILLON’S “MOURNING SALOON.”