The gentleman who piloted us on this walk through the North End was acquainted with the occupants of the Clarke House, (much the most curious of the two,) therefore we stopped in, and were courteously shown its principal apartments. It was built by Mr. Clarke, in the time of Queen Anne, and was after him occupied by Sir Henry Frankland, and called, for awhile, the Frankland House. It had a large, wide entrance hall, with a parlor on each side. All the ceilings were much too low for the taste of the present times; and a low ceiling always causes a room to look smaller than it really is. The walls of the left hand parlor had been covered with rich tapestry, over which a modern wall-paper was now pasted. A small portion of the papering being peeled off, we saw part of the tapestry beneath. But the other parlor had been evidently the room of state. The floor required no carpet, for it was _parqueté_ all over with small square pieces of American wood, comprising, as we were told, fifty different sorts or specimens; the light-colored pieces forming the ground-work, and the dark ones the figure or pattern. At the first glance it resembled an oil-cloth, or rather (to adopt a very homely comparison) it was not unlike the block-work bed quilts that our grandmothers took such pains in making. On this floor there was a border all round: and in the centre the marquetry represented a large swan with a crown on its head, and a chain round its breast. This was the cognizance of the Clarke family. Those conversant with heraldry know that there is always a reason, either historical, traditionary, or allegorical, for the introduction of certain strange symbols into a coat of arms. We were told that this tesselated floor had cost fifteen hundred dollars. The walls of the room were divided into compartments, edged with rich gilded mouldings; each containing an oil painting, tolerably good, but very vividly colored. The subjects were beyond our comprehension. We did not know whether they were what the drawing-masters call figure-pieces, or whether they were landscapes with figures in them.