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Page 12
"Hello!" Jack called after her, "what are you going up stairs for?"
"I supposed you expected everybody to go to the second floor," said
Jill, looking over the bannister, "or you wouldn't have set the stairs
directly across the front entrance."
"I do, of course," Jack responded, following three steps at a time.
"And now will you please signify your royal pleasure as to apartments?"
"Oh, yes! The first requisite is a room with at least one south
window."
"Here it is. A southerly window and a cloudy sky--two windows, in fact.
And look here: see what a glorious closet. It goes clear up to the
ceiling."
"It isn't a closet at all; only a little cupboard. It wouldn't hold
one-half of your clothes nor a tenth part of mine. And there's no
fireplace in the room--not even a hole for a stovepipe."
"Furnace, my dear. We shall be warmed from the regions below. There's
the register."
"I see. But where shall the bed stand? On these two sides it would come
directly in front of a window; on this side there isn't room between
the two doors; on that, there's the 'set bowl'--I hate 'set
bowls'--and the furnace register in the floor."
[Illustration: NO PLACE FOR THE BED.]
"That's so. I never had any bed in this room. Try the dining-room
chamber; that has a south window. The bed can stand on the north side
and the dressing table over in the other corner."
"Yes, in the dark, with a window behind my back. Oh! Jack, why didn't
you get a wife before you planned your house?"
"I did try."
"You did! You never mentioned it to me before. What is this little room
for?"
"Why, nothing in particular. It came so, I suppose--part of the hall,
you know; but it wouldn't be of any use in the hall, so I made a room
of it. It will hold a cot bed if we should happen to have a house full
of company."
"It will never be needed for that with three other guest rooms; but I
see what can be done. You know I promised not to make any alterations;
but destruction isn't alteration, and as this little room is beside the
front chamber, with only the little cupboards between, a part of the
partition between the rooms can be destroyed. There will be no need of
a door; a porti�re will be better, and I can use the small room for a
dressing-room and closet. So _that_ is nicely arranged; and while you
are marking where the partition is to be cut away I will explore the
first story."
[Illustration: ENLARGED BY DESTRUCTION.]
Now, the stairs were built in a very common fashion, having a sharp
turn at the top, which made the steps near the balustrade exceedingly
steep and narrow. Jill's foot slipped on the top step and down she
went, feet foremost, never stopping till she reached the hall floor
below. Jack, hearing the commotion, ran to the rescue, caught his foot
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,
with a fireplace opposite the wide doorway. Then, taken all together,
we should have a very pretty sitting-room. I shouldn't call that an
alteration--should you, Jack?--only an addition."
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