The only rooms on the first story of the Rectangle which require a special description are the galleries and pavilions stretching from the Main Entrance Hall along the west front of the building. As has been said before, entrance to these is through two corridors, leading to the north and south. The corridors look out upon the interior courts; the floors are of mosaic, and the walls are painted in simple tones of color with pilasters of Vermont marble polished to a peculiarly soft and waxy surface. The ceiling is a succession of small domes in white and gold. In the centre of each is a large gilt rosette. Around it are hexagonal coffers, or panels ornamented with painted figures. The broad arches between are decorated with coffers and panels in relief, and, finally, the tympanums beneath the domes (one at either end of the corridor, and seven along the west wall) are occupied with panels representing, in the corridor to the south, which the visitor is now supposed to have entered, _The Greek Heroes_. =Mr. McEwen’s Paintings.=--The series is the work of Mr. Walter McEwen. The special subjects are incidents, as related in Greek mythology, in the lives of the following heroes, taking the paintings in order from north to south: _Paris_, _Jason_, _Bellerophon_, _Orpheus_, _Perseus_, _Prometheus_, _Theseus_, _Achilles_, and _Hercules_. Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, was brought up as a shepherd on Mt. Ida. When a dispute arose among the three goddesses, Juno, Minerva and Venus, as to who should possess a golden apple inscribed “To the Fairest,” which Eris (Strife) had flung in the midst of an assembly of the deities, Paris was selected by Jupiter to decide their quarrel. He awarded the apple to Venus, who promised him the most beautiful woman in the world to be his bride. Hearing of the charms of Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, Paris sailed to Greece, and by the aid of Venus carried her away to Troy--thus provoking the expedition of the Grecian chiefs, and the ten years’ siege of Troy. Mr. McEwen’s painting shows Paris at the court of Sparta, conversing with Menelaus, while Helen sits listening beside her husband. [Illustration: CORRIDOR OF THE SPECIAL READING ROOMS.] Pelias, King of Iolchos in Thessaly, was warned by the oracle to beware of his nephew Jason. He therefore sent him in search of the Golden Fleece. This had belonged to a ram which had miraculously carried Phryxus and Helle, a brother and sister in danger of their lives through the cruelty of a stepmother, across the sea to Colchis. Here, when the ram died, Phryxus hung up its fleece in the grove of Mars, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason accepted the quest, and is here shown inviting the Grecian heroes to join in the voyage which he is to make to Colchis in the ship Argo--to enroll themselves in the famous band of the “Argonauts.”