Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/732

678 balcony extends out from the Parlors on this side and overlooks the private garden near by, and the public grounds beyond. The high basement gives the house a third story on this side. On both fronts the grounds are laid out with taste and planted with forest-trees and shrubbery. The walks are of gravel, broad and delightful.

The mansion is two stories and very lofty, one hundred and seventy feet front, and eighty-six feet deep. The northern front is ornamented with a lofty portico of four Ionic columns in front and three on either side. Beneath this portico drive the carriages of visitors; immediately opposite the front door, across the open vestibule or hall, is the Reception Room. The East Room is eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and twentytwo high. There are four mantels of marble with Italian black, and gold fronts, and very handsome grates; each mantel is surmounted with a French mirror, the plates of which measures one hundred and fifty-eight inches, framed in splendid style. Four other large mirrors, two at each end of the room, reflect the rays from three large chandeliers, from which depend glass pendants, which glitter in the light like diamonds; each chandelier has twenty-seven burners.

In front of the Presidents' House, in a small enclosure, is the bronze statue of Jefferson, presented to the government by Captain Levy, of the United States army, who was, at that time (1840) owner of Monticello. The statue stands on a pedestal: in his left