in greenery, we could discern at irregular intervals the red-tiled rooftrees of lowly cottage homes peeping picturesquely forth. Then we were transported to an old, time-grayed manor-house of many gables and great stacks of clustering chimneys, its ivy-grown walls and lichen-laden roof being backed by rook-haunted ancestral elms; the ancient home, with its quaint, old-fashioned garden and reed-grown moat encircling it, seemed, when we first came unexpectedly thereon, more like the fond creation of a painter or a poet than a happy reality.
"Don't you remember," said my wife, as we were looking at this last drawing, "what a delightful day we spent there, and how the owner, when he discovered us sketching, at once made friends with us and showed us all over the dear old place, and how he delighted in the old armour in the hall, and how he told us that his ancestors fought both at Crecy and Agincourt—how nice it must be to have valiant ancestors like that!—and don't you remember that low-ceilinged, oak-panelled bed-chamber with the leaden-lattice window, the haunted room, and how it looked its part; and afterwards how the landlady of the village inn where we baited our horses would have it that the ghost of a former squire who was murdered by some one—or the ghost of somebody who was murdered by that squire, she was not quite sure which—stalks about that very chamber every night. And then there were the curiously-clipped yews on the terrace, and the old carved sun-dial at the end of the long walk, and" But the last sentence was destined never to be
