to be sure, although in some places the ground is full and running over with flat stones that can be laid up as easily as shingles.  They would hardly need any mortar, and the brick trimmings you describe would be a nuisance, except for looks.  Miles and miles of stone-walls you will see, up and down hillsides and across pastures that don’t look worth their taxes.  Once in a while the lower half of a cider-mill, the back side of a barn-yard shed, or something of that sort, is made of them; but the people in these parts seem to think it would be folly to use them for anything more dignified.  I suppose, because they are too simple and natural,—­just as the Almighty made them.

These square-cornered, flat-sided fellows are not the commonest kind, however; and I’m free to maintain that I don’t want to build my house more than seventy-five feet high of the smooth cobbles that will scarcely hang together in a respectable stone-heap.  I should expect the whole thing would come tumbling down some rainy night.

Mrs. John don’t take to the notion of a stone house—­not yet.  Says they’re wofully old-fashioned and poky,—­look like Canadians and poor folks.  I just keep still and let her talk,—­it’s the best way.

Won’t such walls be cold and damp?  How am I to know whether the stones that I can find are fit to use?  Send you a boxful by express?

Yours,

John.

LETTER IX.

From the Architect.

A broad house is better than A high one.

My dear John:  It will not be necessary for you to send me a stone-heap or a section of pasture-wall for inspection.  I would rather venture an opinion from your description.

Of course, these walls alone, if solid, as they doubtless must be, will be cold and damp; they must be furred off within to prevent moisture from condensing on the walls of the rooms.  This furring should be done with light studs, secured to the floor timbers above and below, having no connection with the stone walls, the inside of which may be left quite rough, whatever the “builders in the elder days of art” might say to such negligence.  For greater permanence and security against fire, instead of wood furrings you may build a lining of brick, leaving an air space of several inches between it and the stone, very much in the same way as if the whole were of brick.

You say you would prefer not to build walls as high as a church tower of smooth cobblestones.  Don’t; it wouldn’t be wise.  Still I have seen them, of more humble dimensions, laid in good cement, as such walls always should be laid, that seem as firm as unbroken granite.  But you will remember I only advise this mode of building on the condition that you are not ambitious of height.  If you are, by all means curb your aspirations, or else buy a city house six or seven stories in the air, where