er to the grandest of the stone mansions on the
east. With the exception of two or three houses built in the early
history of the block, and occupied by obstinate old proprietors, it
presented such a regularly ascending line of roofs, that a giant could
have walked up stairs from one end to the other. Although each house was
built upon a plan peculiar to itself, and supposed to reflect the
long-cherished views of the original owner, there were certain
resemblances among them. This was sometimes the effect of a jealous
rivalry; sometimes of imitation. In one dozen houses there was a costly
struggle for supremacy in window curtains. In another dozen, the
harmless contest pertained to Grecian urns crowned with flowers, or dry
dolphins, tritons, or naiads, rising from the bosoms of little gravel
beds in miniature front yards. In a third dozen, there was a perspective
of broad iron balconies elegantly constructed for show, and sometimes
put to hazardous use, on warm summer nights, by venturesome gentlemen
with cigars, or ladies with fans.

About the middle of the block was a colony of doctors, who had
increased, in five years, from two to ten. Their march was eastward, and
it could be calculated to a nicety how long it would be before the small
black, gilt-lettered signs of their profession would press hard upon the
great house at the corner. Why they thus congregated together, unless
with the friendly purpose of relieving each other's patients in each
other's absence, and so saving humanity from sudden suffering and death,
was a mystery to everybody but themselves.

The north side lacked variety. One part of it, comprising twenty lots,
had been built up on speculation by an enterprising landowner. The
houses were precisely alike, from coal cellar to chimney top, with front
railings of exactly the same pattern, crowned with iron pineapples from
the same mould, encompassing little plots of ground laid out in walks
similar to the fraction of a hair; the sole ornaments of which were four
little spruce trees, planted at equal distances apart.

This row of houses was very distracting even to the occupants, with whom
it was a feat of arithmetic to identify their homes in the daytime, and
much more so at night, when the landmarks were shadowy and
indistinguishable. Occasionally, well-meaning tenants found themselves
pulling at wrong doorbells; and there was one man who got tipsy every
Saturday night, and rang himself quite throug