There are four rooms on the first story, five on the second, and four on the third. The sitting and dining rooms are placed opposite each other. The main hall is roomy, and may be also used as a sitting-room, being but little obstructed by the stairs. These occupy an alcove of their own, and protrude into the hall only so far as to show agreeably, without taking up too much space. We should strongly object to having the staircase entirely shut off from the hall, as it seems to belong to it by old association, and to suggest invitingly that there are comfortable apartments above.

So, too, the superseding of the spacious fireplace and hearth-stone in our family sitting-room by the modern hot-air furnace, is an abomination grievous to be borne by those who remember fondly that ancient symbol of domestic union and genial hospitality. Indeed, if our means would allow, I would prefer to have a fire-place in the hall itself; and instead of the little narrow hard-coal grate, with the inevitable marble mantel surmounting it, a generous, old-fashioned open chimney, large enough to sit in if one so desired. But in a house of this size we could not do justice to the subject; and I have preferred to carry out this idea in a larger dwelling, which will be represented in a future number.

A gentleman, by frequent communications with his architect, necessarily to a very great extent imprints his own character upon his house; and this is one of the most important æsthetic ends of the art, and proves bow possible it is to express in a manner even the most delicate idiosyncrasies of human character. It is the duty of the architect, studying the desires and needs of his client, carefully to manage the design in all its parts, so as to fit into and harmonize with the lives to be spent under its roof.

Thus a house of this kind, we think, will at once impress the beholder with the conviction that it is the habitation of a gentleman of small family and means, yet pos-