Not that I would have them _called_ old maids’ homes, for that would stamp them at once, like a workhouse woollen waistcoat, or a charity cloth cloak. No; they should be Sweet Homes, or have other such pretty significatives; giving them rank with the best Rose Cottages, Myrtle Cottages, and Laurel Cottages, in the land. They might prettily be called after their fair owners—Julia’s Cottage, Maria’s Cottage, Helen’s Cottage, and so forth. Mine is Whiterose Cottage. It has not an exterior like a long, narrow knife-tray, or candle-box: on the contrary, though its rooms lie parallel, they are not of an uniform width or length; consequently, the walls have what Mary Russell Mitford called “a charming in-and-outness;” and there is not a straight line or “coign of vantage,” that is not draped by some gay or graceful climbing plant—rose, jessamine, lophospermum scandens, morandia Barclayana, ecremocarpus, nasturtium, and callistegia, or Romeo’s ladder. The dwelling was built by a retired tradesman of good taste, and some originality as well as education. He was a widower, without children, determined to have everything comfortable for his old housekeeper as well as himself—consequently, the kitchen, though small, is as complete in all its appointments, as can possibly be wished; with water laid on, and a little oven in the kitchen-range—in which, as the furnishing ironmonger triumphantly says, you may bake a pie, a pudding, and a pig. Phillis, I believe, enjoys her kitchen quite as much as I do my parlour. Kitchen and parlour stand sentries, as it were, at each end of the house. There is hardly a hall worth speaking of—only a little vestibule built on, that will just hold a mat, a flower-stand, a hall-chair, and an umbrella-stand. Over the threshold, the quaint old man has carved “PARVA, SED APTA,” which, I am sure, is true enough. And on one of the panes of the high lattice-window, with its eight compartments, in the parlour, is written with a diamond ring— “True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise.”