I want very little frescoing and gilding in these houses, but there must be fire-escapes at the rear, and every device for convenience that is available.
In regard to their outward appearance I have but one suggestion to make. I should like to have the windows very broad and very low. It has always seemed to me ridiculous to note the pains which is taken to cut a hole in the wall and then immediately cover up two thirds of it in the most elaborate manner with lambrequins and two or three sets of curtains, all of which are never raised above the middle sash except when the servant washes the glass. If it is desirable to admit a little subdued light near the top of the room, this might be done by a few panes of stained or ground glass, which would not be covered by a curtain. On the exterior the bricks or stone, arranged in the form of an arch over each window, would add much to the beauty of effect.
If a window were five feet wide by three and a half high, the top being no more than six and a half feet from the floor, the curtain question would be somewhat simplified and our rooms made sunnier and more beautiful. However, I leave this to the architect to decide.
You will, I think, get my idea from the accompanying sketches.
Yours sincerely,
Mildred Brewster.
CHAPTER X.
In achieving spiritual emancipation the mind must pass from prescription to conscious reason, from mere faith to knowledge. There must be nothing lost in the transition, only a gain in the form of science to what was before held in the form of faith and tradition. But this transition is the most painful one in history, although its results are the most glorious.—Wm. T. Harris, LL. D.
One evening Mildred and I had prepared for bed, and in our dressing-gowns were sitting cosily before our open wood fire, watching the flames dance and flicker and cast weird shadows on the wall. It had been a hard day, the morning having been spent in writing and dictation and in examining a half bushel of mail matter; the afternoon we had spent in visiting tenement houses and industrial schools in Brooklyn.
After dinner, however, I had beguiled Mildred into a merry hour over some dashing Schubert duets, for music never failed to rest and soothe her. Then, turning the lights down and drawing the tête-à-tête before the red glow of the firelight, we fell to talking, indulging in many reminiscences of childish pranks and school-girl sentimentality.