-and in this narrow garden grow
velvety wall-flowers, cloves, pinks, shrubs of lavender, and a few herbs
which are useful for seasoning. The house is built of brick; but the
colour is toned down by age, and against the wall a pear-tree is trained
upon one side, and upon the other a cherry-tree, so that at certain
seasons one may rise in the morning and gather the fresh fruits from the
window. The lower windows were once latticed; but the old frames have
been replaced with the sash, which if not so picturesque, affords more
light, and most old farmhouses are deficient in the supply of light. The
upper windows remain latticed still. The red tiles of the roof are dull
with lichen and the beating of the weather; and the chimney, if looked
at closely, is full of tiny holes--it is where the leaden pellets from
guns fired at the mischievous starlings have struck the bricks. A pair
of doves perched upon the roof-tree coo amorously to each other, and a
thin streak of blue smoke rises into the still air.

The door is ajar, or wide open. There is no fear here of thieves, or
street-boys throwing stones into the hall. Excepting in rain or rough
wind, and at night, that front door will be open almost all the summer
long. When shut at night it is fastened with a wooden bar passing across
the whole width of the door, and fitting into iron staples on each
post--a simple contrivance, but very strong and not easily tampered
with. Many of the interior doors still open with the old thumb-latch;
but the piece of shoe-string to pull and lift it is now relegated to the
cottages, and fast disappearing even there before brass-handled locks.
This house is not old enough to possess the nail-studded door of solid
oak and broad stone-built porch of some farmhouses still occasionally to
be found, and which date from the sixteenth century. The porch here
simply projects about two feet, and is supported by trellis-work, up
which the honeysuckle has been trained. A path of stone slabs leads from
the palings up to the threshold, and the hall within is paved with
similar flags. The staircase is opposite the doorway, narrow, and
guiltless of oilcloth or carpeting; and with reason, for the tips and
nails of the heavy boots which tramp up and down it would speedily wear
carpets into rags. There is a door at the bottom of the staircase closed
at night. By the side of the staircase is a doorway which leads into the
dairy--two steps lower than the front of the h