8 



HOME AND GARDEN 



window on the middle landing. The stairs come straight 

 into the room, and with the wide, hooded, stone-built 

 fireplace take up the greater part of its western end. 

 The windows, after the manner of the best old buildings 

 of the country, are set with their oak mullions flush with 

 the outer face of the wall, so that as the wall is of a 

 good thickness, every window has a broad oak window- 

 board, eighteen inches wide. The walls are twenty- 

 two inches thick, and as the local stone is pervious to 

 water for some years after being freshly used, they are 

 built hollow, with an outer stone wall nearly fifteen 

 inches thick, then a three-inch air-space, and an inner 

 wall of brick firmly bound to the outer with iron ties. 



The steps of the stairs are low and broad. There 

 are four short flights and three square landings ; the 

 first landing giving access to a small book-room, which 

 has no door, but is entered by a curtained arch. It 

 is a pleasant little room ; a room good to work and 

 read in. It always makes me think of St. Jerome's 

 Study in the National Gallery ; not that it has the 

 least likeness in appearance, but because it has that 

 precious feeling of repose that disposes the mind to 

 study. The south wall is mostly window, the west 

 wall is all books ; northward is the entrance arch and 

 an oak bureau, and on the fourth side is another book- 

 case and the fireplace. 



The stairs feel pleasantly firm and solid ; the main 

 posts at the angles go right down and rest on brick 

 masonry. The longest measures thirteen feet, and it 



