the ground will quickly dry and where, if a drain-pipe should break, the filthy waste-water will run away quickly instead of remaining in the ground a long time. Of course, a broken drain ought to be mended at once, but until it is mended the sewage should drain away as quickly as possible. I have heard that under a certain old English palace the ground is so soaked

A few days later the cellar was completed. The walls were made of smooth brick, with a layer of broken stone between them and the earth. Broken stone was also put in the bottom of the cellar space and cement over it to form the cellar floor. "Now," said Uncle George, "if we should have a rainy season, the water will drain away from our house and we shall always have a good, dry cellar."

Ruth looked admiringly at the smooth walls. "My!" she exclaimed, "Up at Dorothy Frost's house we went down in the cellar one day to get some apples and the walls were dreadful. They were awfully rough and dirty."

"The Eskimos," said Uncle George, "have an odd way of smoothing the inside walls of their snowhouses. When the house is all built, a fire is made inside and kept burning until the snow walls begin to melt. Then the fire is put out, or else a hole is made in the roof to let the cold in, and Presto! in a moment the hut walls are beautiful, shining ice. It makes the snow-house much stronger and Mr. Stefansson, the great Arctic explorer, says that it is also pleasanter to have a hard wall and not to brush off a bushel of snow every time you happen to brush against the ceiling."

Another thing that interested Paul was the cellar windows. There were two on each side, and for each window Father made a carefully-fitted screen. "Now," said Paul. "I guess that gray cat of Frosts' can't get in and eat all our cream!" Paul had never quite gotten over his disappointment the summer before when, on an especially hot day, they had planned to make ice-cream and he had gone down cellar to find Billiken, the Frosts' cat, washing his face beside the empty cream jug.

"No," laughed Father, "Billiken will have to be pretty clever to get through these screens, and, what's more, so will Mr. and Mrs. Fly and all the little flies. Lots of people screen all the upstairs windows and

then wonder where the flies come from, when all the time the cellar windows are wide open.

"But they could just as well close the cellar windows," said Paul.

"No," said Father. "We want a fresh current of air blowing through the cellar to keep it sweetsmelling and dry."

"The Frosts' cellar windows were all shut when I was down there," said Ruth, "and they were so dirty that no light could come in, and there were piles of everything lying around and

"There, there, Ruth," said Mother. "It is not nice to visit people and then talk about them afterward. Never mind the Frosts. We have only our own house to attend to. And I shall expect you and Paul to keep this cellar just as clean and nice as it is now-no old rubbish, no dirt, no smells. Every spring, or oftener if it needs it, we'll whitewash the walls with lime-I know Paul will enjoy slopping the whitewash around-and we'll never be ashamed to have anyone come into our cellar, will we?"

"No, indeed, we won't," chorused both children. That evening Father looked up from his reading. "Look here, folks," he said. "Here is a picture that will interest you. Here is a palace that was built about six hundred years ago and built under much greater difficulties than we have in building your house."

"Whose palace was it?" asked Ruth.

"It was the palace of the Duke or Doge of Venice. You know that Venice is really built on a number of mud banks, with the water of the sea flowing among them. Many of the streets of Venice are canals in which the people use boats instead of automobiles and cars."

"But how could they build the houses on soft mud?" asked Ruth.

"They dug down through the mud until they came to a layer of clay. Then they drove great logs, standing on end into the clay close together. On this they laid a wooden platform and on this platform the houses were built."

"I think they were pretty wise to know how to do all that six hundred years ago," said Paul.

"They were," said Mother, "very wise and very hard working, or we should not to-day be still admiring their beautiful buildings."

"Well," said Ruth, turning away and looking out to where the foundations of the play-house rose under the cherry-tree, "I think our house is going to be just as nice as the Doge's palace and not half so sloppy!"