immaculate air of this facade, a little worn by perpetual rubbing,
gave the house a tone of severe propriety and estimable decency which
would have driven a romanticist out of the neighborhood, had he
happened to take lodgings over the way.

When a visitor had pulled the braided iron wire bell-cord which hung
from the top of the pilaster of the doorway, and the servant-woman,
coming from within, had admitted him through the side of the
double-door in which was a small grated loop-hole, that half of the
door escaped from her hand and swung back by its own weight with a
solemn, ponderous sound that echoed along the roof of a wide paved
archway and through the depths of the house, as though the door had
been of iron. This archway, painted to resemble marble, always clean
and daily sprinkled with fresh sand, led into a large court-yard paved
with smooth square stones of a greenish color. On the left were the
linen-rooms, kitchens, and servants' hall; to the right, the wood-house,
coal-house, and offices, whose doors, walls, and windows were
decorated with designs kept exquisitely clean. The daylight, threading
its way between four red walls chequered with white lines, caught rosy
tints and reflections which gave a mysterious grace and fantastic
appearance to faces, and even to trifling details.

A second house, exactly like the building on the street, and called in
Flanders the "back-quarter," stood at the farther end of the
court-yard, and was used exclusively as the family dwelling. The first
room on the ground-floor was a parlor, lighted by two windows on the
court-yard, and two more looking out upon a garden which was of the same
size as the house. Two glass doors, placed exactly opposite to each
other, led at one end of the room to the garden, at the other to the
court-yard, and were in line with the archway and the street door; so