string courses, mural tablets, and brackets are of varied pattern and tastefully applied.

The name of the house, with the initials and insignia of its owner, are sufficiently repeated to mark the facts, but not strewn ad nauseam like the Tudor badges, and monograms of ordinary people not fertile in ideas. The piers of the garden walls are relieved by courses of agreeably moulded brick. On the walls are set iron pillars which support chains to wreathe climbing plants in festoons round the garden boundary.

But it is not so much with the external appearance of the house that we have to deal; indeed, this is foreign to our subject, except when, as in this case, it is a personal creation, and a marked originality of treatment and practically useful invention are manifest in many points. Its main bearing on my theme consists in showing that architecture, at any rate domestic architecture, is a fine art that may be successfully practised by a woman; and that, even without reference to practice, it is an eminently elevating subject of study. Few persons can command their choice in external form for their houses any more than in their own persons; the mind is more under our control, and so is the interior of our house.

Alford House has been seven years in growing. The interior is unfinished, and is perhaps more interesting in its state of development than if it were already perfected. It is a work of art, of which one

cartoon.

sees the first sketch in colour, and the outline on the It presents the outcome of the educational system of forty years since, carried out under utmost advantages of time, cost, early study, travel, refined association, and custom. This is the fruit that female culture of that kind can produce under best conditions of lofty intellect well, that is broadly, grown. It remains to be proved whether our more modern theories will produce a result so good and useful, so free from cant and prejudice.

One gains a general impression of pleasantness and sunny brightness among polished marble pillars and busts, shining brass stoves, and flowers, in passing from the entrance to the corridor, where one just traces the delicate pattern of the parqueterie beside the crimson velvet carpet (noting a bas-relief built into the wall) in passing the morning-room door to that of the boudoir next beyond.

This is a captivating room, lofty in proportion to its size, which is a structural necessity, and no blemish, but rather the reverse, in that it admits, above the blue satin panels on the white enamelled walls, of a series of low-pointed arches in the cornice, slightly recessed, and painted with frescoes from Lady M. Alford's own drawings of skies and rose trellises; with incidents, such as a vase of white lilies, a group of pale cypresses or poplars, painted in tender blues and distant greenery; a basket of fruit

on a pedestal, a winged genius playing the lute, and others. The room is carpeted with sky-blue woollen velvet, edged with a narrow claret-coloured border of small pattern. The windows are draped with blue, and with white muslin curtains with Italian borderings, so choice in design that they must have been made to her ladyship's order, from her pattern. The general painting of the room is in milk-white enamel, with gold mouldings.

The chimney-piece and mirror form part of a charming composition in sculptured white marble; the fireplace contains an unburnished brass vase, or basket, with curved handles, to hold the fire.

The room is furnished with writing-tables, portfolio stands, and inlaid cabinets. Its reposeful feeling is enhanced by its outlook on the space and foliage of the park; but what most heightens its interest is a marble bust in relief, set as a panel on the window side of the fireplace, a portrait of her sister, modelled by Lady M. Alford herself, and very finely executed.

On the other side of the chimney-piece a doorway leads to a large morning-room hung with Spanish leather, richly flowered and gilt. These hangings were a present to her ladyship, but they were in many pieces, and insufficient for entirely covering the walls, so they were made out by herself painting to match any pieces she could meet with to fit.

The coloured marble chimney-piece is Italian work

of the sixteenth century; the upper part came originally from a church, but it was "picked up" by Lady M. Alford in a London shop, so it is no theft from Italy, no sacrilege, but a recovery which is cherished here. It has been adapted to its present purpose by sundry additions, fitted with ingenuity and taste, These details serve to show that ingenuity is applicable to large houses as well as to small ones. This house abounds in clever, skilful contrivances, showing fertility of invention, a vital quality of the artist; the result is no pasticcio, but a delightfully varied harmony, breaking at times into the gaiety of the scherzo.

This room is decorated, not crowded, with various pictures, including Stothard's "Pilgrimage to Canterbury," one of the three originals of this well-known painting; but the pictures are chiefly by the great Italian masters. One is a very choice "bit" by Masaccio, an angel with pink drapery. Near the fireplace hang two pictures, one of them a saint, by Lo Spagna, pupil of Perugino, and fellow-student with Raffaelle. Of equal power and interest is a picture on a table easel on the other side of the carved mantelpiece, a water-colour painting by the late Marquis of Northampton, Lady M. Alford's brother. The subject is our Saviour with the Roman soldier, and a third figure. This work is very fine and masterly in touch; the centurion is Velasquez-like

in its firmness, decision, and deep colouring: a profile portrait of Lady Brownlow, by Clifford, though graceful, looks weak by its side.

The furniture and upholstery of this room make it eminently habitable; indeed, the house throughout gives one the impression of extreme comfort which never degenerates into luxury. The chairs are chairs, and not lounges; the pleasure spread before one here demands too much activity from the mind to be compatible with sloth, and yet it does not importune by a persistent claim on the attention; it is a cordial, rather than the medicinal draught too many of our dogmatic houses resemble. This is no burden; it is, rather, a bunch of roses that we carry. It is refreshing to find none of that effort at novelty, that laboured singularity which meet us in other new red houses; or else the determined adoption of a fancy dress to which it is so difficult to conform our manners. The invention here is of a higher order than that which delights in mere queerness. The decoration is uncommon by reason of its excellence, the goodness of its drawing, the elegance of its choice: the things for use are really usable, the things we should admire are admirable. The solid tea-service of richly chased scroll pattern in silver struck me as having, like the house, the air of good old-fashioned English comfort which is so often missing among our fantastic imitations of Japanese, Arabian, Gothic,