in the carpet and came tumbling after, with twice as much noise and not
half as much grace. Happily the staircase was well padded under the
carpet, and finding Jill unhurt as well as himself, Jack helped her to
rise and coolly remarked:

"You certainly can't find any fault with the stairs, Jill, dear. If
there had been one of those square landings midway it would have taken
twice as long to come down. I--I had them made so on purpose. Will you
walk into my parlor?"

They went in and sat down in easy-chairs.

"I suppose," said Jill, "that our native land contains about a million
houses with stairs like these and just such halls--if people will
persist in calling them 'halls,' when they are only little narrow,
dark, uncomfortable entries. If we were going to make any alterations
in this house--which we are not, only destructions--- I should take
these out, cut them in two in the middle, double them up, straighten
the crook at the top and shove them outside the house, letting the main
roof drop down to cover them. Then I would make a large landing at the
turn, large enough for a wide seat, a few book shelves and a pretty
window. This could be of stained glass, unless the view outside is more
interesting than the window itself. The merit of a stained-glass
window," Jill observed, very wisely, "is that the sunlight makes a
beautiful picture of it inside the house during the day, and the same
thing, still more beautiful, is thrown out into the world by the
evening lamps, and the darker the night the brighter the picture. After
the stairs were moved out, the little hall, if joined by a wide
doorway, to the room we are now in would become of some value. There is
no grate in this room, and a chimney might be built in the outer wall,