suggestive of an old English manor house. The walls are beautifully
paneled from an old English plan. The turned balusters are
representative of the late Seventeenth or early Eighteenth Century. The
fine old Jacobean chairs and tables have weathered two centuries, and
are friendly to their new neighbors, Oriental rugs older than
themselves. The staircase has two landings, on the first of which
stands an old Grandfather's-clock, marking the beginning of a custom
that obtains to this day.

This hall is characteristic of American houses of the Colonial period,
and indeed of the average large country house of to-day, for the
straightaway hall, cutting the house squarely in two, is so much a part
of our architecture that we use it as a standard. It is to be found,
somewhat narrower and lower of ceiling, in New England farmhouses and in
Eastern city houses. The Southern house of ante-bellum days varied the
stair occasionally by patterning the magnificent winding staircases of
old England, but the long hall open at both ends, and the long stair,
with one or two landings, is characteristic of all old American houses.

The customary finish for these old halls was a landscape wall paper, a
painted wall broken into panels by molding, a high white wainscoting
with white plaster above, or possibly a gay figured paper of
questionable beauty. Mahogany furniture was characteristic of all these
halls--a grandfather's-clock, a turn-top table, a number of dignified
chairs, and a quaint old mirror. Sometimes there was a fireplace, but
oftener there were doors opening evenly into various rooms of the first
floor. These things are irreproachable to-day. Why did we have to go
through the period of the walnut hat-rack and shiny oak hall furniture,
only to return to our simplicities?