lace is formed solely by the chimney; and hence-owing to the
gradual tapering of the chimney--is a little less than twelve feet
in width. Climbing the chimney in this part, is the principal
staircase--which, by three abrupt turns, and three minor landing-places,
mounts to the second floor, where, over the front door, runs a sort
of narrow gallery, something less than twelve feet long, leading to
chambers on either hand. This gallery, of course, is railed; and so,
looking down upon the stairs, and all those landing-places together,
with the main one at bottom, resembles not a little a balcony for
musicians, in some jolly old abode, in times Elizabethan. Shall I tell
a weakness? I cherish the cobwebs there, and many a time arrest Biddy in
the act of brushing them with her broom, and have many a quarrel with my
wife and daughters about it.

Now the ceiling, so to speak, of the place where you enter the house,
that ceiling is, in fact, the ceiling of the second floor, not the
first. The two floors are made one here; so that ascending this turning
stairs, you seem going up into a kind of soaring tower, or lighthouse.
At the second landing, midway up the chimney, is a mysterious door,
entering to a mysterious closet; and here I keep mysterious cordials,
of a choice, mysterious flavor, made so by the constant nurturing and
subtle ripening of the chimney's gentle heat, distilled through that
warm mass of masonry. Better for wines is it than voyages to the Indias;
my chimney itself a tropic. A chair by my chimney in a November day is
as good for an invalid as a long season spent in Cuba. Often I think
how grapes might ripen against my chimney. How my wife's geraniums bud
there! Bud in December. Her eggs, too--can't keep them near the chimney,
an account of the hatching. Ah, a warm heart has my chimney.

How often my wife was at me about that projected grand entrance-hall of
hers, which was to be knocked clean through the chimney, from one end
of the house to the other, and astonish all guests by its generous
amplitude. "But, wife," said I, "the chimney--consider the chimney: if
you demolish the foundation, what is to support the superstructure?"
"Oh, that will rest on the second floor." The truth is, women know next
to nothing about the realities of architecture. However, my wife still
talked of running her entries and partitions. She spent many long nights
elaborating her plans; in imagination building her boasted hall
through