vestibule a stairway leads to the second floor, which communicates with a smaller stairway and often with a ladder to the floor above. Let us enter a rich home and see how the rooms are arranged. We pass through a great oaken door painted green and furnished with a heavy iron knocker, to enter a high and commodious vestibule, the walls of which are hung with pictures, deers’ heads or other hunting trophies. On one side is a broad oak staircase with a lion, griffin, or dragon beautifully carved at the base, and holding in his paws the same coat-of-arms that is carved in front of the gable. Facing the entrance hangs a magnificent oil painting. In less wealthy homes the vestibule is encased with blue and white tiles, and the floor is also laid in the same, and a carved oak or stone bench faces the door. As this “_voorhuis_,” or vestibule, is used by the less fashionable as a living apartment, there also stands here a table, and on the wall a mirror in an ebony frame, and many polished brass vessels and Delft dishes and plates give a homelike character to the spot. A house of this type has a verandah outside, on and under which the small merchant conducts his business, although his office or “_comptoir_” is at the back. If this happens to be a school, the master or mistress teaches his or her class under the “_luifel_”; or, if an inn, this is the meeting or smoking-room. The “_comptoir_” is also found in the homes of the rich, and the lady of the house often sits there with her children, not because it is the most attractive place, but in order to keep the better rooms neat and clean. In rich houses many of the rooms are known by individual names,—some according to the use to which they were put, others on account of the hangings, the name of the occupant, or an important piece of furniture. Hence we have the salon, dining-room, show-room, the sleeping-room, the little cabinet (office), the gold leather room, the damask room, the matted room, the room of Adam and Eve, Mr. Arends’s room, Miss Emerentia’s room, Mr. Cornelius van Beveren’s sleeping-room, etc., etc.