I am not ashamed to say that I loved these friends of my youth and that I still reverence their memories. Nor am I ashamed to tell you that for several years after I reached maturity a particular object of my affections was a wee canary bird that sang sweet songs to me and played daintily with my finger whenever I thrust it into the little rascal's cage. Alice insists that I actually cried when that silly little creature died; may be I did, for I am a very, very foolish fellow. One of the things I have never been able to understand is why Alice, with all her gentleness and tenderness, has so violent an antipathy to bird and brute pets. Alice actually seems to dislike birds and dogs with the same zeal with which I love them. At times--you will hardly believe it--Alice has exhibited Neronian cruelty and hardness of heart. I remember that on one occasion she caught a harmless, innocent little blue mouse in the pantry. She fully intended to drown the helpless creature--as if this world were not big enough for mice and men to live and be happy in! I had great difficulty in rescuing the tiny rodent from his captor, and I remember the satisfaction I had in giving him his liberty under the kitchen porch of neighbor Rush's house next door. At first Alice was kindly disposed toward the conservatory scheme, but in an unguarded moment one day I chanced to breathe a suggestion that a combination conservatory-bird cage would do very nicely, and that settled the fate of my pleasant dreamings forever. But I seldom argue these things with Alice. The conservatory is now a shattered dream, and the butler's pantry is inevitable. The graceful alcove, which was to have been the conservatory (with aviary features), is to be provided with a permanent, stationary seat which Adah is to upholster in a pattern which Maria has promised to send from St. Joe. Whenever I think of it there rise up before my mind's eye visions of stolen meetings in that alcove, and whispered interviews, in which I fancy I see our daughter Fanny figuring as an active participant, and then I devoutly pray that little Erasmus' vigilance may be increased a thousand-fold. I was informed in good time that the library was to be virtually the living-room for the family. It was here that casual callers were to be received and entertained; here the errand boys who delivered packages from the downtown shops were to leave their goods and get their receipts; here the laundryman was to wait every Monday morning while Adah gathered up my hebdomadal bundle of linen for the wash; here were the children to gather for a frolic every evening after the humble vesper meal.