The Old Stone House. 63 



mild, seem to be happy or sorrowful, and no doubt they 

 affect the character of those who live within their walls. 



As we walked away across the fields we lingered, and 

 now and then cast our looks behind. There was the long, 

 low house, with the broad salt meadows coming close to 

 its walls. Its trees, its barn, and the family grave-yard, 

 seemed all in keeping, as if Nature herself had said, "If 

 man must live here, build the house this way," and they 

 had followed her plan. She is most kind to these low, 

 rambling, rural houses, and sheds about them a homelike 

 aspect. Indeed, it is very hard to build a large, preten- 

 tious mansion that will be thoroughly in accord with the 

 scene. Nature appears overtaxed with it, and the windows 

 do not peep out the same homelike rays. The green 

 spreading lawns, with their display of flowers in mathe- 

 matically exact beds, all representing a great expenditure, 

 do not produce a more pleasing impression than the little 

 gardens with their hardy flowers and vegetables side by 

 side, and maybe the red apples, in Autumn, lying promis- 

 cuously over the ground. 



