For the average American the best types of country house to choose from are the smaller Tudor manor-houses, Italian villas, Georgian architecture in England, and our own Colonial style which of course was founded on the Georgian.  In the south and southwestern parts of this country a modified Spanish type may be used in place of Tudor, which does not give the feeling of cool spaces so necessary in hot climates.  The bungalow type is also popular in the South.

There are many architects in this country who understand thoroughly the plan and spirit of Colonial times, and who succeed in giving to the comforts of modern days the true stamp of the eighteenth century.  The style makes most delightful houses, and with the great supply of appropriate furniture from which to choose, it would be hard to fail in having a charming whole.

The house and garden should be planned together to have the best effect.  Each can be added to as time goes on, but when a plan is followed there is a look of belonging together which adds greatly to the charm.

[Illustration:  A hall to conjure with—­although a Hepplewhite or Sheraton chair would be more in keeping.]

In an all-the-year country house a vestibule is a necessity as much as in a town house, and the hall should be treated with the dignity a hall deserves, and not as a second living-room.  In many English houses of Tudor days the stairs were behind a carved screen, or concealed in some manner, which made it possible to use the hall as a gathering place.  Our modern hall is not a descendant of this old hall of a past day (the living-room is much more so), but is really only a passage, often raised to the nth power, connecting the different rooms of the house, and should be treated as such.  The stairs and landing and vista should be beautiful, and the furnishing should be dignified and in perfect scale with the rest of the house.  Marble stairs and tapestry and old carved furniture and beautiful rugs, or the simplest possible furniture, may be used, but the hall should have an impersonally hospitable air, one which gives the keynote of the house, but reserves its full expression until the privacy of the living-rooms is reached.

[Illustration:  A very rare block-front chest of drawers with the original brasses.]

The average country house is neither very magnificent nor very simple, but strikes the happy medium and achieves a most delightful home-like charm, which at the very outset makes life seem well worth living.  It is rarely furnished in a period style throughout, but has the modern air of comfort which good taste and correct feeling give.  For instance, the hall may have paneling and Chippendale mirror, a table, and chairs; the living-room furnished in a general Colonial manner mixed with some comfortable stuffed furniture, but not over-stuffed, lovely chintz or silk hangings, and a wide fireplace; the morning-room on something the same plan, but a little less formal;