The inclosed entrance porch, approached by three or four stone steps, with a seat or two for servants waiting, is a distinctive mark of all the old English houses. This projects, in most cases, from the main body of the edifice, and opens directly into the hall. The latter apartment is not merely (as in most of our modern houses) an entry, narrow and long, running directly through the house, but has a peculiar character of its own, being rather spacious, the roof or ceiling ribbed or groined, and the floor often inlaid with marble tiles. A corresponding and suitable style of finish, with Gothic details, runs through all the different apartments, each of which, instead of being finished and furnished with the formal sameness here so prevalent, displays, according to its peculiar purposes- as the dining-room, drawing-room, library, etc.-a marked and characteristic air.
