In looking over houses to be rented by persons of moderate means, one cannot help longing to build,--one sees so many ways in which the same sum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have been made to build a delightful one. * * * * * "That's so!" said Bob, with emphasis. "Don't you remember, Marianne, how many dismal, commonplace, shabby houses we trailed through?" "Yes," said Marianne. "You remember those houses with such little squeezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glass china-closet window and no butler's sink?" "Yes," said Bob; "and those astonishing, abominable stone abortions that adorned the door-steps. People do lay out a deal of money to make houses look ugly, it must be confessed." "One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense with frightful stone ornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of no possible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and centre-pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble mantels, for the luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple of comfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so wholly without regard to convenience! How often we find rooms, meant for bed-rooms, where really there is no good place for either bed or dressing-table!" Here my wife looked up, having just finished re-drawing the plans to the latest alteration. "One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days," she observed, "would be to have women architects. The mischief with houses built to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. No woman would ever plan chambers where there is no earthly place to set a bed except against a window or door, or waste the room in entries that might be made into closets. I don't see, for my part, _apropos_ to the modern movement for opening new professions to the female sex, why there should not be well-educated female architects. The planning and arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would anybody think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely by Mr. Blue without the help of his wife?" "My dear," said I, "you must positively send a paper on this subject to the next Woman's-Rights Convention." "I am of Sojourner Truth's opinion," said my wife,--"that the best way to prove the propriety of one's doing anything is to go and _do it_. A woman who should have energy to go through the preparatory studies and set to work in this field would, I am sure, soon find employment."