There should, then, be only two stories in a gentleman's country residence, and a dormer or mansard story if we may so term it, in the roof;--we will not be so vulgar as to call it a garret,--nor yet so classical as to resort to the appellation of an attic. If, therefore, you require a large house, take plenty of ground, and lay out all your rooms _en suite_. Let all the offices, whence any noise or smell can arise, be perfectly detached from the dwelling part of the mansion:--such as the kitchens, sculleries, laundries, &c. They should all be collected into a court with the coach-houses and stables on the outside, and the whole range of the domestic offices on the other. Never allow a kitchen to be placed under the same roof as your dining-room or drawing-room: cut it off completely from the _corps de logis_, and let it only communicate by a passage;--so shall you avoid all chance of those anticipatory smells, the odour of which is sufficient to spoil your appetite for the best dressed dinner in the world. If you would have any use for the vault under your house, keep all your cellar stores, and all your "dry goods" there;--it will be a test of your house being well-built if they do not show any effects of damp after a few months' stowage below the level of the soil, yet in _aere pleno_. We do not mean to say that we would put one of our best and newest saddles, nor our favourite set of harness, in one of the lower vaults, to judge of the dampness of the house; but depend upon it, a pair or two of old shoes form excellent hygrometers; and you may detect the "dew-point" upon them with wonderful accuracy. "But only look at how you are increasing the cost of the house by thus stretching out the house, and really wasting the space and ground!"--What! still harping on the same string--that eternal purse-string!--still at the gold and the notes? If you go on at this rate, my good sir, you will never do any thing notable in the house-line. Take a lesson from Louis XIV. when he built Versailles;--that sovereign had at least this one good quality,--he had a supreme contempt for money;--it cost him a great deal no doubt, but it is "Versailles," _nec pluribus impar_;--why, it is a quarter of a mile long, and there is, or rather was, room in it to have lodged all the crowned heads of Europe, courts, ministers, guards, and all. Never stint yourself for space; the ground you build on is your own; it is only the extra brick and mortar;--the number of windows is not increased by stretching the plan out, the internal fittings are not an atom more expensive. Be at ease for once in your life, and cast about widely for room.