er all, this was as near as we ever came to
solving the colonial mystery.

That day, sitting about the fireplace in Colonel Byrd's library, we
listened to a pleasant chapter in the story of an old manor-house--the
account of the recent restoration of Westover. As in most cases where
extensive rehabilitation of colonial homes has been attempted, an
interesting part of the work was the opening up of goodly old-time
fireplaces that the changing fashions of changing generations had
filled in with brick and mortar. Sometimes they had shrunk to the
dimensions of a modern grate; sometimes even to that of a stovepipe
hole. Indeed, what chronological mile-stones are the various forms of
our American fireplaces! As the historic dates grow larger, the
fireplaces grow smaller.

Of course Westover never had the hugest of fireplaces. Even when this
old home was built, the shrinkage in chimney-pieces had been going on
for some time. No longer was most of the side of a room in a blaze. No
longer was the flame fed by a backlog so huge that "a chain was
attached to it, and it was dragged in by a horse."

How far removed Westover was from the day of such things, is shown by
the noted mantelpiece in the drawing-room. Only with the coming of
smaller fireplaces came those elaborate mantelpieces. But the great
fireplaces of our ancestors yielded slowly, inch by inch, as it were;
and something of the goodly proportions they yet had in Colonel Byrd's
day, the hammer and chisel have shown at Westover.

If the exquisite Colonel's doubtless exquisite ghost haunts this home,
we can imagine his pleasure when, one wintry night, he found reopened
this fine old library fireplace, and sat him down to toast his shapely
calves (even ghostly, they must yet be shapely) in the genial old-time
glow.

Some of the most interesting features of the work of putting an old
homestead back into a period from which it has strayed, grow out of the
very limitations. At Westover, while conformity to colonial times is
carried far, even to the exclusion of rocking-chairs, yet there has
been no shrinking from anachronisms that comfort or convenience demand.

Eighteenth century fireplaces may blaze and crackle, and quite imagine
themselves to be still heating the old house; but somewhere down below
is a twentieth century furnace that is quietly doing most of the work.

[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM MANTELPIECE AT WESTOVER.]

And what a shock it must be to the colo