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In this statement he shows the lamentable state of decay in the eastern end of the Lady Chapel, the bulging of its walls and the dangerous fissures, which, on the removal of whitewash and plaster, became visible in the soffit of each of the window arches.

The soffit of the arch is carved, and the face of the pilaster below has a very rich and graceful vine arabesque upon it.

Excellent doorways such as this with fluted pilaster casings, single doors with six molded and raised panels of familiar arrangement and paneled jambs and soffit to correspond are to be seen at Number 5011 Germantown Avenue, Germantown, and Number 247 Pine Street.

Presently nimbus-step, tier and canopy, gradually breaking up, formed a low arch regular as the Bifrost bridge which Odin treads, spanning a space between the horizon, ninety degrees broad and more. The sharply cut soffit, which was thrown out in darkest relief by the dim and sallow light of the underlying sky, waxed pendent and ragged, as though broken by a torrent of storm.

One thing he might miss were not his attention called to it the ingenious way in which the whole composition is adjusted to a diagonal axis that the asymmetry of the wall may be minimized. Draw an imaginary straight line from the boss in the soffit of the arch through the middle of the Janus-head of Prudence.

Except one small lancet adjoining this buttress, the windows of the Lady-loft are square-headed, with mullions branching out into intersecting arches whose cusps spring from the soffit independently of the mouldings an early feature; and the dripstones are square labels terminating in foliage, but with the ends not returned.

They surrender at once without a struggle, and unconditionally; the chamfers deepen and multiply themselves, cover the soffit, ally themselves with other forms resulting from grouped shafts or traceries, and settle into the inextricable richness of the fully developed Gothic jamb and arch; farther complicated in the end by the addition of niches to their recesses, as above described.

Fluted columns standing on a high, broad pedestal which runs about the walls like a wainscot, support a heavy complete entablature enriched with beautifully hand-carved moldings, notably an egg and dart ovolo between cornice and frieze and foliated moldings about the mutules and the panels of the soffit and metopes.

Later, outside shutters came into vogue, and the jambs and soffit of the embrasures were paneled, as at Whitby Hall, the treatment of the Palladian window on the staircase landing in this house being an especially fine example. The parlor at Stenton is among the most notable instances in Philadelphia of this architectural treatment of the fireplace in a room with wood paneling throughout.

The pediment framing the simple but very graceful fanlight is enriched by cornice moldings, hand-tooled to fine scale, the soffit of the corona being fluted, the bed-molding reeded and the dentil course being a familiar Grecian fret.