As our look out at the back is far from pretty, and to tell the truth never did please me, (for we had only a view of these S--mm--nds’ trumpery garden, and they are always washing at-home, and hanging the things out to dry right under our very noses) why, I thought (as I always had been, from my cradle, of an ingenious turn of mind) that I might as well ornament our staircase-window just a little bit, and so shut out that dreadful eyesore which we had at the back of us, and make the window quite a handsome object; for I must say that of all things in the world for a staircase, give me a stained glass window. Oh! I do think it looks so beautiful--so rich and _distingué_, to see bunches of roses, and pinks, and camelias, painted on ground glass, just for all the world as if they were growing there. So I set to work, and having a pair of old worn-out chintz bed-curtains up stairs, I cut out some of the best flowers that had had the least of their colour washed out of them, and dabbed some putty over all the panes, until, I declare to goodness gracious, a glazier himself would have sworn that the glass had been ground. Then, with some gum I stuck the chintz flowers in the centre of every one of the panes, and, upon my honour, I can assure the reader, it was the most perfect bit of deception I ever saw in all my life; and I’ll warrant, that even the best judges in stained glass would have had to have passed their fingers over the surface, before they would have been able to have found it out. As any one came in at our street-door, it positively gave the house quite a cathedral air. Oh! it was so beautiful, so chaste, and yet so rich; and when I first saw it from our hall, I couldn’t for the life of me help exclaiming, with the top of the bills of the Colosseum--“’Tis not a picture--it is nature.” Yet, when I think of what happened afterwards, I declare I feel as if I could sit down and cry my eyes out--but more of this hereafter.