It looks a little ashamed of
its shabbiness when you come upon it suddenly hiding behind its pushing
neighbors. First comes an iron fence with a gate never shut, and then a
flagged path dividing a grass-plot, and then an old-fashioned wooden
stoop with two steps, guarded by a wooden railing (many a day since
these were painted); and over these railings and up the supports which
carry the roof of the portico straggles a honeysuckle that does its best
to hide the shabbiness of the shingles and the old waterspout and
sagging gutter, and fails miserably when it gets to the farther cornice,
which has rotted away, showing under its dismal paint the black and
brown rust of decaying wood.
Then way in under the portico comes the door with the name-plate, and
next to it, level with the floor of the piazza or portico--either you
please, for it is a combination of both--are two long French windows,
always open in summer evenings and a-light on winter nights with the
reflection of the Doctor's soft-coal fire, telling of the warmth and
cheer within.
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