nd
built in a simple style of no particular name or pretensions; but
massive, stately, and elegant. No unfinished or half realized idea;
what had been attempted had been done, and done well. The house was
built on three sides of a quadrangle. The side of approach by which the
cavalcade had come, winding up from the valley, led them round past the
front of the left wing. Mr. Carlisle made her draw bridle and fall a
little behind the carriage.

"Do you like this view?" said he.

"Very much. I have never seen it before."

He smiled at her, and again extending his hand drew Black Maggie's rein
till he brought her to a slow walk. The carriage passed on out of
sight. Eleanor would have remonstrated, but the view before her was
lovely. Three gables, of unequal height, rose over that facade; the
only ornamental part was in their fanciful but not elaborate mouldings.
The lower story, stretching along the spread of a smooth little lawn,
was almost masked with ivy. It embedded the large but perfectly plain
windows, which reached so near the ground that one might step out from
them; their clear amplitude was set in a frame of massive green. One
angle especially looked as if the room within must be a nest of
verdurous beauty. The ivy encased all the doorways or entrances on that
side of the house; and climbing higher threatened to do for the story
above what it had accomplished below; but perhaps some order had been
taken about that, for in the main its course had been stayed at a
certain stone moulding that separated the stories, and only a branch
here and there had been permitted to shew what more it would like to
do. One of the upper windows was partly encased; while its lace
curtains gave an assurance that all its garnishing had not been left to
nature. Eleanor could not help thinking it was a very lovely looking
place for any woman to be placed in as her home; and her heart beat a
little high.

"Do you not like it?" said Mr. Carlisle.

"Yes,--certainly!"

"What are you considering so attentively in Black Maggie's ears?"

Eleanor caused Maggie to prick up the said ears, by a smart touch of
her whip. The horses started forward to overtake the carriage. Perhaps
however Mr. Carlisle was fascinated--he might well be--by the present
view he had of his charge; there was a blushing shy grace observable
about her which it was pretty to see and not common; and maybe he
wanted the view to be prolonged. He certainly did not follow