ough pains had been taken
that no two should be on a level; and the windows were of ugly shape,
and the whole mass was uncouth and formless,--partaking neither of
the Gothic beauty of the Stuart architecture, nor of the palatial
grandeur which has sprung up in our days; and it stood low, giving
but little view from the windows. But, nevertheless, there was a
family comfort and a warm solidity about the house, which endeared it
to those who knew it well. There had been a time in which the present
Squire had thought of building for himself an entirely new house, on
another site,--on the rising brow of a hill, some quarter of a mile
away from his present residence;--but he had remembered that as
he could not leave his estate to his son, it behoved him to spend
nothing on the property which duty did not demand from him.

The house stood in a park of some two hundred acres, in which the
ground was poor, indeed, but beautifully diversified by rising knolls
and little ravines, which seemed to make the space almost unlimited.
And then the pines which waved in the Newton woods sighed and moaned
with a melody which, in the ears of their owner, was equalled by
that of no other fir trees in the world. And the broom was yellower
at Newton than elsewhere, and more plentiful; and the heather was
sweeter;--and wild thyme on the grass more fragrant. So at least Mr.
Newton was always ready to swear. And all this he could not leave
behind him to his son;--but must die with the knowledge, that as soon
as the breath was out of his body, it would become the property of
a young man whom he hated! He might not cut down the pine woods, nor
disturb those venerable single trees which were the glory of his
park;--but there were moments in which he thought that he could take
a delight in ploughing up the furze, and in stripping the hill-sides
of the heather. Why should his estate be so beautiful for one who was
nothing to him? Would it not be well that he should sell everything
that was saleable in order that his own son might be the richer?

On the day after he had written his reply to Sir Thomas he was
rambling in the evening with his son through the woods. Nothing could
be more beautiful than the park was now;--and Ralph had been speaking
of the glory of the place. But something had occurred to make his
father revert to the condition of a certain tenant, whose holding on
the property was by no means satisfactory either to himself or to his
lan