I intended to have a tower or a cupola, but after so much change I hardly know where I am coming out.  There is something very imposing about a tower, and a cupola seems to finish the house handsomely, besides affording fine views.  I feel decidedly partial to French roofs, but have seen some very awkward ones that I should be sorry to imitate.  They give excellent chambers and have a modern look.  The latter point I suppose you will not think important.

Truly,

FRED.

LETTER XXXIII.

From the Architect.

BASEMENTS AND BALCONIES.

Dear Fred:  Of course Miss Jane’s ideas are good.  When a woman honestly tries to understand her work and do it well, she is sure to succeed, especially in this matter of the equipments of home.

The basement arrangement depends mainly on the location.  When this is favorable it is undoubtedly economical, nor is it necessarily inconvenient or unpleasant in any way, but quite the reverse.  You are fortunate if your site will allow it, for it adds enormously to the capacity of the establishment.  At least two sides of this lower story, “basement” you call it, should be above ground to insure dryness and plenty of light.  Then all the heavier work of the house, including the eating and drinking, can be done on this floor, leaving the upper stories intact for loftier purposes.  The old-fashioned cellar as a storehouse for a half-year’s stock of provisions—­bins, and barrels by the dozen, of potatoes, apples and cider, corned beef, pork, vegetables, vinegar, and apple-sauce—­is extinct.  Hence the space once thus occupied is almost a clear gain if made into finished apartments,—­an economy that will commonly allow a family room on the next floor, whereby the going up and down stairs is no more serious than if both are one story higher.  The sketch is an illustration of what the basement adds.  The capacity of the little house is more than doubled by it, while in point of style the augmentation is even greater than in room.

[Illustration:  WHAT THE BASEMENT ADDS.]

As to height of stories, you are quite as liable to make them too high as too low.  For rooms within the common limits of size, ten to eleven feet in the clear is enough.  Even nine is by no means dangerous.  If too high for their area, they seem like large closets, giving a feeling of being walled in, hardly less unpleasant than the low-hanging ceilings of the last century.  I know the argument of better ventilation.  But that depends.  The old, seven-foot rooms, with their huge fireplaces, big enough to hold a load of wood, ox-team and all, undoubtedly held purer air than is found in the hermetically sealed apartments of the present time, whose ceilings are out of sight.