rest?

Farther along, striped grass, mints, herbs and balsams made the air
heavy with spicy odors when the dew was on the grass.

The mansion was built on the generous, old-time plan. There were high
porches at the front, with white, fluted pillars, an enormous front
door, with a fan-window over the top, and side-lights of high, narrow
panes of glass. On the stoep, or stoop, were benches at the side,
painted white, where one might sit out in the cool of the day.

Inside, immense fireplaces told of good cheer on chilly nights, when a
bright wood fire made the big knobs on the burnished andirons, or
"fire-dogs," seem as if alive with glancing light. Great sofas, wide,
high-backed and deep, covered with tapestry or brocades, lace hangings,
wide chairs, ottomans, antimacassars, or tidies, footstools, high-backed
chairs, with seats wrought in worsted work, pier-glasses, reaching
almost from floor to ceiling, pictures, a piano, something quite new
then, a _carpet_, another new luxury, also a spinet, a kind of piano of
wiry sound, a violin, and lute, all were in the ample drawing-room.

In the hall were portraits, some very old, and swords, ancient bows and
arrows, and a few old battle scenes adorned the walls. The newels, or
posts, at the foot of the banisters, bore great carved figures of
sea-serpents and griffins, strange animals, part lion, part eagle.

The dining-room had always fresh white sand upon the floor, had also
heavy carved furniture, and against the walls were pictures of hunting
scenes, and many a pictured feast or revel.

Up-stairs were great square rooms with painted floor and home-made mats
in abundance. Bedsteads, with high posts and "testers," or canopies
overhead. Furniture, covered with chintz, looked fresh and fine, while
bedspreads, valances, or side-flounces for the beds, tester, curtains,
dressing-table, and mirror, all were made, bordered, or trimmed, with
brightly flowered chintz.

The spare room, or "parlor-chamber," was delightfully cool and pure
looking, decked out in white dimity, stiff with starch, and full of an
air of grandeur.

The cook-room of the house was at the rear of the mansion, apart from
it, and the different dishes were carried through a covered passage.
Afar down the grounds were the stables, back of them the quarters of the
black servants, and still beyond, the wide plantation or tobacco fields.

At one side of the garden, midst lawn and shrubbery, was a stone wall
bo