t length begat serious meditation. "Wife," said I, "whose boards and
timbers are those I see near the orchard there? Do you know anything
about them, wife? Who put them there? You know I do not like the
neighbors to use my land that way, they should ask permission first."

She regarded me with a pitying smile.

"Why, old man, don't you know I am building a new barn? Didn't you know
that, old man?"

This is the poor old lady who was accusing me of tyrannizing over her.

To return now to the chimney. Upon being assured of the futility of her
proposed hall, so long as the obstacle remained, for a time my wife was
for a modified project. But I could never exactly comprehend it. As far
as I could see through it, it seemed to involve the general idea of a
sort of irregular archway, or elbowed tunnel, which was to penetrate
the chimney at some convenient point under the staircase, and carefully
avoiding dangerous contact with the fireplaces, and particularly
steering clear of the great interior flue, was to conduct the
enterprising traveler from the front door all the way into the
dining-room in the remote rear of the mansion. Doubtless it was a bold
stroke of genius, that plan of hers, and so was Nero's when he schemed
his grand canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Nor will I take oath,
that, had her project been accomplished, then, by help of lights hung at
judicious intervals through the tunnel, some Belzoni or other might
have succeeded in future ages in penetrating through the masonry, and
actually emerging into the dining-room, and once there, it would have
been inhospitable treatment of such a traveler to have denied him a
recruiting meal.

But my bustling wife did not restrict her objections, nor in the end
confine her proposed alterations to the first floor. Her ambition was of
the mounting order. She ascended with her schemes to the second floor,
and so to the attic. Perhaps there was some small ground for her
discontent with things as they were. The truth is, there was no regular
passage-way up-stairs or down, unless we again except that little
orchestra-gallery before mentioned. And all this was owing to the
chimney, which my gamesome spouse seemed despitefully to regard as
the bully of the house. On all its four sides, nearly all the chambers
sidled up to the chimney for the benefit of a fireplace. The chimney
would not go to them; they must needs go to it. The consequence was,
almost every room, like a phil