et it
was to draw near my own home, after having lived homeless in the world
so long!... With thoughts like these, I descended the hill, and
clambered over the stone wall, and crossed the road, and passed up our
avenue, while the quaint old house put on an aspect of welcome.

* * * * *

_Monday, August 8._--I wish I could give a description of our house, for
it really has a character of its own, which is more than can be said of
most edifices in these days. It is two stories high, with a third story
of attic chambers in the gable roof. When I first visited it, early in
June, it looked pretty much as it did during the old clergyman's
lifetime, showing all the dust and disarray that might be supposed to
have gathered about him in the course of sixty years of occupancy. The
rooms seemed never to have been painted; at all events, the walls and
panels, as well as the huge crossbeams, had a venerable and most dismal
tinge of brown. The furniture consisted of high-backed, short-legged,
rheumatic chairs, small, old tables, bedsteads with lofty posts, stately
chests of drawers, looking-glasses in antique black frames, all of which
were probably fashionable in the days of Dr. Ripley's predecessor. It
required some energy of imagination to conceive the idea of transforming
this ancient edifice into a comfortable modern residence. However, it
has been successfully accomplished. The old Doctor's sleeping apartment,
which was the front room on the ground floor, we have converted into a
parlor; and, by the aid of cheerful paint and paper, a gladsome carpet,
pictures and engravings, new furniture, _bijouterie_, and a daily supply
of flowers, it has become one of the prettiest and pleasantest rooms in
the whole world. The shade of our departed host will never haunt it; for
its aspect has been changed as completely as the scenery of a theatre.
Probably the ghost gave one peep into it, uttered a groan, and vanished
forever. The opposite room has been metamorphosed into a store-room.
Through the house, both in the first and second story, runs a spacious
hall or entry, occupying more space than is usually devoted to such a
purpose in modern times. This feature contributes to give the whole
house an airy, roomy, and convenient appearance; we can breathe the
freer by the aid of the broad passage-way. The front door of the hall
looks up the stately avenue, which I have already mentioned; and the
opposite door op