Many people dislike to have their cooking done by gas, and it is objectionable for roasting or broiling; still, there are such numerous inventions in cooking-stoves, each simpler, cleaner, and more perfect than the rest, that only the embarrassment of selection can cause hesitation in making a choice. Near a nice bright stove, placed in a recess glittering with Dutch tiles or Minton's artistic _plaques_, surrounded by burnished pans and pots of well-lined copper or brass and neat enamelled saucepans, the genius of the hearth presides over the mysteries of Hestia. The window, made with diamond panes mingled with a few lozenges of bright colour, is mostly open in summer, and wreathed with climbing plants--as vines, and ornamental gourds, with their curious black or scarlet fruit, the rich foliage intercepting the sunshine--or closed if it be winter, and draped in pleasant muslin. I would take great pains to make my kitchen the most picturesque and cheerful room in the house, as it is one of the most important. On no account would I use the great black beetle-trap cellar downstairs and underground, which strikes with dismay the greater number of young girls who have rushed from school into marriage, and who instantly become the prey of the tyrant imprisoned in that dungeon, which is too often also a den of iniquity. No; if obliged to have a house with one of these dismal caverns, I would invent some useful purpose for it; but I would not willingly select such a dwelling. These underground kitchens must eventually die out, and our children will wonder why we used such airless, lightless places. In a house arranged on my plan we aim upwards, not downwards. We might, perhaps, on wet days, let the children go to these basement rooms to skip or romp, as there they could not shake down the ceiling beneath them, as sometimes happens in upstairs play-rooms; only the rooms must be kept carefully whitewashed, and, as far as possible, well aired. Or the old kitchen might be fitted up with racks for guns and fishing-rods, and used as a smoking-room, when cosily papered, and carpeted with matting; and the back kitchen converted into a carpenter's shop with lathe and tool-chest. But our kitchen, the pride of our house, will be level with the dining-room and front door. It is a foolish practice to have all vegetables, meat, coal, etc., taken downstairs for the purpose of bringing them all up again. When it is impossible to spare two rooms on the ground floor for household use, let both kitchen and dining-room be upstairs, while the drawing-room might be on the ground floor. This would give no more work than does our present custom. But where it is possible, it is better, for obvious reasons, that the kitchen should be on a level with the street door.