TAKING REINS IN HAND. 87 



and its pleasant juxtaposition of tints was so sugges 

 tive of the particolored devices that I had seen on 

 the country houses of Lombardy, that the chimneys 

 have become cheap little monuments of loiterings in 

 Italy. 



The plank of the gables, wholly unplaned, has 

 been painted a neutral tint to harmonize with the 

 stone, and the battens are white, to accord with the 

 lines of mortar in the wall below ; the commingled 

 brick and stone of the house, are repeated in the 

 chimneys above ; the roof has now taken on a gray 

 tint ; the lichens are fast forming on the lower 

 stones ; a few vines, the Virginia creeper chiefest 

 (Ampelopsis Hederacea), are fastening into the crev 

 ices, making wreaths about the windows all the 

 summer through, and in autumn hang flaming on the 

 wall. There is a May crimson, too, from the rose 

 bushes that are trailed upon the porch. It is all 

 heavily shaded ; a long, low wall of gray, lighted with 

 red-bordered embrasures, taking mellowness from 

 every added year; there are no blinds to repair; 

 there is but little paint to renew ; it is warm in win 

 ter ; it is cool in summer ; vines cling to it kindly ; 

 the lichens love it ; I would not replace its homeliness 

 with the jauntiest green-blinded house in the country. 



Of course so anomalous a structure called out the 

 witticisms of my country neighbors. &quot; Was it a 



