rd Farmington Avenue, but it was by no means unbeautiful. It
was a pleasing detail of the general scheme. The main entrance faced at
right angles with the street and opened to a spacious hall. In turn, the
hall opened to a parlor, where there was a grand piano, and to the
dining-room and library, and the library opened to a little conservatory,
semicircular in form, of a design invented by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Says
Howells:

The plants were set in the ground, and the flowering vines climbed
up the sides and overhung the roof above the silent spray of the
fountain companied by Callas and other waterloving lilies. There,
while we breakfasted, Patrick came in from the barn and sprinkled
the pretty bower, which poured out its responsive perfume in the
delicate accents of its varied blossoms.

In the library was an old carved mantel which Clemens and his wife had
bought in Scotland, salvage from a dismantled castle, and across the top
of the fireplace a plate of brass with the motto, "The ornament of a
house is the friends that frequent it," surely never more appropriately
inscribed.

There was the mahogany room, a large bedroom on the ground floor, and
upstairs were other spacious bedrooms and many baths, while everywhere
were Oriental rugs and draperies, and statuary and paintings. There was
a fireplace under a window, after the English pattern, so that in
winter-time one could at the same moment watch the blaze and the falling
snow. The library windows looked out over the valley with the little
stream in it, and through and across the tree-tops. At the top of the
house was what became Clemens's favorite retreat, the billiard-room, and
here and there were unexpected little balconies, which one could step out
upon for the view.

Below was a wide, covered veranda, the "ombra," as they called it,
secluded from the public eye--a favorite family gathering-place on
pleasant days.

But a house might easily have all these things without being more than
usually attractive, and a house with a great deal less might have been as
full of charm; only it seemed just the proper setting for that particular
household, and undoubtedly it acquired the personality of its occupants.

Howells assures us that there never was another home like it, and we may
accept his statement. It was unique. It was the home of one of the most
unusual and unaccountable personalities in the world, yet was perfectly
and serenely or