As you say, a tower is often very imposing.  It is not always certain who feels the imposition most heavily, the man who pays for it or the man who looks at it.  They are not only imposing, but they contain six or seven stories, one above another, of eight-foot square rooms, deducting a Jacob’s-ladder stairway at one side, whereon people climb to the topmost room for the sake of looking out in the wrong direction through a round dormer-window, scratching their heads in the mean time on the nails that come through the roof!  Cupolas too are lovely,—­especially on a barn,—­and top off a house in the daintiest fashion possible; just as, to set forth great things by small, the “knob” on the sugar-bowl cover finishes the sugar-bowl.  Many houses do appear unfinished without a cupola, and I’m sorry for them, because when the cupola is built it looks so much like the handle on a big cover that I half expect some giant to come along and lift it off to take a peep at the curious animals underneath.  For, truly, they are curious animals, and build some curious nests.  I like, as well as you, to get up above my neighbors now and then, and look down upon them.  I never see a tall chimney or church spire without wishing there was a spiral staircase around the outside of it, from which to view the landscape o’er.  In fact, to be candid, if I had happened to live a few thousand years ago, I am afraid I should have taken stock in the Babel enterprise, not really expecting to leave this terrestrial ball in that way, but just to see how high we could go.  The audacious tower of the Centennial I shall certainly patronize.  But on domestic buildings, unless for better adaptation to the site, or for some special use, there are other things more to be desired than these lofty appendages.  An open balcony, hanging from the highest point of the main roof, just below the scuttle, or the flat, if there is one, on the top of the whole, surrounded by a protecting balustrade, affords a better place for observation and costs less than those laborious affairs whose use and beauty often neutralize each other.

[Illustration:  OUTLOOK FROM THE ROOF.]

How dare you think anything claiming to be a French roof ugly to look at?  People who are fond of that style admire them from a sense of duty, because they are French roofs.  Perhaps if I was a Frenchman I should like French roofs, too; being an American, I like American roofs better.  You do, however, give one reason for your preference,—­the complete chambers,—­which is merely another way of saying you like three stories better than two,—­a good argument, by the way, for the basement, which is surely more convenient than an attic.  I enclose a sketch, intimating an outline and style that will suit your location.  The roof, which is not French, either in form or costliness, will contain all the dormitories and store-rooms you can use, unless you propose keeping a three-story boarding-house.