OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



This being undertaken, it is found that the 

 sleepers are awry, and to make square work the 

 carpenter suggests a replacement of the floor- 

 ing timber. This being accomplished, it is 

 hinted by the observant mistress that the win- 

 dows are hardly in keeping, and the order is 

 given for new frames and sashes. The doors 

 must needs match the windows ; and next there 

 is a sly regret that the plain ceilings should 

 not have their fretting of a town cornice : and 

 so the poor old house is gradually dwarfed 

 with a great burden of pretentious modernisms 

 that it can carry with no grace. Even the 

 mater familias has at last her disappointments, 

 and says quietly: "Sylvanus (it is of Mr. Ur- 

 ban that I write), I think 't would have been 

 perhaps better to build a new house." 

 Unquestionably. 



SITE AND MATERIAL 



But if new, what is to be said of site, of ma- 

 terial, of style? Not absolutely upon a hill- 

 top, I should say, unless there be some great 

 flanking wood against the north, or such plant- 

 ing and arrangement of outbuildings as shall 

 presently secure shelter: not upon low land 



284 



