THE OPEN WINDOW 



agreeable feature and went, full of enthusiasm, to the 

 Friendly Architect with my plans; but he looked at 

 me askance and remarked among other things that evi- 

 dently I had forgotten this was to be a plaster house, 

 and hoods over the windows would be an abomination! 

 Perhaps he phrased it more politely but that was 

 his essential meaning. Of course I was no more 

 anxious than he to ruin the exterior of the house. I 

 only begged that wherever possible our windows 

 should be protected. This he readily promised, and 

 as a result we have five rooms in which at least one 

 window never need be shut. 



In my own room this rainproof opening is a con- 

 stant joy and is open from May until October. Facing 

 the setting sun, protected on the north by the 

 jutting bricks of the big chimney, overhead by the 

 three-foot eaves assisted by the overlapping boughs of 

 a specially planted maple, it provides me with fresh 

 scented air from fragrant shrubs below it, with sweet- 

 est sounds from bird throats about it and with a suc- 

 cession of pictures inimitable and unforgetable. 



"5 



