to keep this question out of my countenance, as we turned into the driveway, and the beauties of the Bartholomew home burst upon me.

I shall find it a difficult house to describe. It is so absolutely the product of a dominant mind bound by no architectural conventions that a mere observer like myself could only wonder, admire and remain silent.

It is built of stone with a curious admixture of wood at one end for which there seems to be no artistic reason.[Pg 17] However, one forgets this when once the picturesque effect of the whole mass has seized upon the imagination. To what this effect is due I have never been able to decide. Perhaps the exact proportion of part to part may explain it, or the peculiar grouping of its many chimneys each of individual design, or more likely still, the way its separate roofs slope into each other, insuring a continuous line of beauty. Whatever the cause, the result is as pleasing as it is startling, and with this expression of delight in its general features, I will proceed to give such details of its scope and arrangement as are necessary to a full understanding of my story.

[Pg 17]

Approached by a double driveway, its great door of entrance opened into what I afterwards found to be a covered court taking the place of an ordinary hall.

Beyond this court, with its elaborate dome of glass sparkling in the sunlight, rose the main façade with its two projecting wings flanking the court on either side; the one on the right to the height of three stories and the one on the left to two, thus leaving to view in the latter case a row of mullioned windows in line with the façade already mentioned.

It was here that wood became predominate, allowing a display of ornamentation, beautiful in itself, but oddly out of keeping with the adjoining stone-work.

Hemming this all in, but not too closely, was a group of wonderful old trees concealing, as I afterwards learned, stables and a collection of outhouses. The whole worthy of its owner and like him in its generous proportions, its unconventionality and a sense of something elusive and perplexing, suggestive of mystery, which same may or may not have been in the builder’s mind when he fashioned this strange structure in his dreams.

Uncle was watching me. Evidently I was not as successful[Pg 18] in hiding my feelings as I had supposed. As we stepped from the auto on to the platform leading to the front door—which I noticed as a minor detail, was 

 Prev. P 12/265 next