OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



affair, with columns for which all heathenism 

 has been sacked to supply the capitals. 



If renovation must be made, it should be 

 made in keeping with the original style of the 

 house — except indeed change go so far as to 

 divest it altogether of the old aspect. In some 

 farm-houses that may be taken in hand for 

 repairs, it might be well even to strain a point 

 in the direction of antiquity, and to replace a 

 swagging door by a stanch one of double- 

 battened oak or chestnut, with its wrought 

 nails showing their heads in checkered dia- 

 mond lines up and down, and its hinges, 

 worked into some fanciful pattern of a drag- 

 on's tail, exposed. Then there should be a 

 ponderous iron knocker, whose din should 

 reach all over the house, and the iron thumb- 

 latch — not cast and japanned, but showing 

 stroke of the hammer and taking on rust 

 where the maid cannot reach with her brick- 

 dust. Of course, too, there should be the two 

 diamond lights lik^ two great eyes peering 

 from under the frontlet of the old-fashioned 

 stoop. All these, if the house be so ancient 

 and weather-stained as to admit of it, w'ill 

 demonstrate that the occupant is among the 

 few who are left in these days of petroleum, 

 who make a merit of homeliness, and cherish 



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