TO MR. W.G. WALLACE

_Parkstone, Dorset, February 1, 1891._

My dear Will,--Another week has passed away into eternity, another month
has opened its eyes on the world, and still the illustrious Charles
[bricklayer] potters about, still the carpenter plies the creaking saw
and the stunning hammer, still the plumber plumbs and the bellhanger
rattles, still the cisterns overflow and the unfinished drains send
forth odorous fumes, still the rains descend and all around the house
is a muddle of muck and mire, and still there is so much to do that we
look forward to some far distant futurity, when all that we are now
suffering will be over, and we may look back upon it as upon some
strange yet not altogether uninteresting nightmare!

Briefly to report progress. The new pipe-man has finished the bathroom
and nearly done the bells, and we have had gas alight the last three
days. The balcony is finished, the bath and lavatory are closed up and
waiting for the varnishers. Charles has finished the roof, and the
scaffolding is removed. But though two plumbers have tried all their
skill, the ball-cock in the cistern won't work, and when the water has
been turned on an hour it overflows. The gutters and pipes to roof are
not up, and the night before last a heavy flood of rain washed a
quantity of muddy water into the back entrance, which flowed right
across the kitchen into the back passage and larder, leaving a deposit
of alluvial mud that would have charmed a geologist. However, we have
stopped that for the future by a drain under the doorstep. The new
breakfast-room is being papered and will look tidy soon. A man has been
to measure for the stairs. The front porch door is promised for
to-morrow, and the stairs, I suppose, in another week. A lot of fresh
pointing is to be done, and all the rain-water pipes and the rain-water
cistern with its overflow pipes, and then the greenhouse, and then all
the outside painting--after which we shall rest for a month and then do
the inside papering; but whether that can be done before Easter seems
very doubtful....

Our alterations still go on. The stairs just up--Friday night we had to
go outside to get to bed, and Saturday and Sunday we _could_ get up, but
over a chasm, and with alarming creaks. Now it is all firm, but no
handrail yet. Painters still at work, and whitewashers. Porch
door up, with two birds in stained glass--looks fine--proposed
new name, "Dicky-bird Lodge." Bath fixed