Perhaps the most difficult part of a house to really make look nice is the hall, especially in one of the small houses of the period, where that tiresome man, the builder, appears to consider either that an entrance to the house is not necessary at all, or that the smaller it is, and the more the stairs are in evidence, the better and more appropriate it is to Angelina’s lowly station in life; indeed, this idiosyncrasy is not confined to small houses, for I know of more than one good-sized domicile that is entirely spoiled by the manner in which the staircase rises from the front door, scarcely allowing that room enough to open, or which has not space even for the hat-stand and hall-table to which the British matron is as a rule so very fondly attached. However, there is now a distinct advance in the matter of the hall in many of the new houses; and we will take it for granted that we have a small space at all events that we can make the very best of, for nothing adds so much to the appearance of a house as a nicely arranged hall. Indeed, were I now beginning housekeeping, nothing should induce me to take a house where there was not an appreciable distance between the sitting-rooms and the front door, for if this latter opens direct on them it is impossible to avoid draughts and constant catching of cold; a nicely warmed sitting-room becoming well-nigh uninhabitable when the front door is opened on a cold or windy night: a chill and cutting draught enters, and in a moment a bad cold is caught. I know nothing more important, therefore, than to consider the position of a front door in choosing a house, as not only one’s comfort but much of one’s health depends upon this. I have had this ‘borne in upon me,’ as the Shakers would say, often and often, when I have been staying in a house where there is literally not a square yard of hall, where the stairs and the front door seem all one, and where the drawing-room literally opens out into the place where the front door is. Even in not particularly cold weather, nothing keeps such a house even warm, and the sudden changes of temperature caused by this arrangement are so great that I have had to live in a shawl and yet could not rise above freezing point; and, of course, what it must be in the depth of winter I must leave my readers to imagine.