dsome cornices and elaborate centre-pieces throughout, except,
again, in the attic.

These ideas he had formed from the inspection of many new buildings
which he had seen going up, and which he had a passion for looking
into. He was confirmed in his ideas by a master builder who had put up
a great many houses on the Back Bay as a speculation, and who told him
that if he wanted to have a house in the style, that was the way to
have it.

The beginnings of the process by which Lapham escaped from the master
builder and ended in the hands of an architect are so obscure that it
would be almost impossible to trace them. But it all happened, and
Lapham promptly developed his ideas of black walnut finish, high
studding, and cornices. The architect was able to conceal the shudder
which they must have sent through him. He was skilful, as nearly all
architects are, in playing upon that simple instrument Man. He began
to touch Colonel Lapham's stops.

"Oh, certainly, have the parlours high-studded. But you've seen some of
those pretty old-fashioned country-houses, haven't you, where the
entrance-story is very low-studded?" "Yes," Lapham assented.

"Well, don't you think something of that kind would have a very nice
effect? Have the entrance-story low-studded, and your parlours on the
next floor as high as you please. Put your little reception-room here
beside the door, and get the whole width of your house frontage for a
square hall, and an easy low-tread staircase running up three sides of
it. I'm sure Mrs. Lapham would find it much pleasanter." The architect
caught toward him a scrap of paper lying on the table at which they
were sitting and sketched his idea. "Then have your dining-room behind
the hall, looking on the water."

He glanced at Mrs. Lapham, who said, "Of course," and the architect
went on--

"That gets you rid of one of those long, straight, ugly
staircases,"--until that moment Lapham had thought a long, straight
staircase the chief ornament of a house,--"and gives you an effect of
amplitude and space."

"That's so!" said Mrs. Lapham. Her husband merely made a noise in his
throat.

"Then, were you thinking of having your parlours together, connected by
folding doors?" asked the architect deferentially.

"Yes, of course," said Lapham. "They're always so, ain't they?"

"Well, nearly," said the architect. "I was wondering how would it do
to make one large square room at the front, taking the who