re gradual."

Our venerable conductor having unfastened the door while L---- was
speaking, we passed into a square enclosure, or rather area; for though
still bounded on three sides by the noble evergreen hedge, it was open
on the fourth to a dreary site of demolished walls and heaps of rubbish,
in place of what had been the ancient mansion of the Devereuxs. The
small garden (for such it was, though now a trampled field of
desolation) had been called more especially Mr Devereux's garden. The
glass-door of his library, and its large bay-window, as well as that of
his bed-chamber above, had opened into it, and in this small secluded
but sunny and cheerful spot it was that the old man had loved best to
spend his solitary and contemplative hours.

Under the hedge on the side we had entered, had stood a range of
bee-hives, the ruins of which were still remaining, though little more
than heaps of mildewing thatch, and long deserted by the industrious
colonies, to watch whose labours had been among the innocent pleasures
of Mr Devereux; and Hallings pointed out some fragments of green
trellis-work, in the angle of the holly wall, which had formed part of
the old man's favourite arbour, where he would sit for hours with his
book, or enjoying the ceaseless humming of the bees, as they gathered in
their luscious harvest from the herbs and flowers he had collected in
that quarter of the garden for their delight and sustenance.

"And they knew my master, sir," said Hallings, turning to me, and
appealing to L---- to confirm the truth of his assertion--"They knew my
master, and, poor small creatures as they were, must have loved him too
in their way, as every living thing did; for they used to buzz all round
him as he sat there, and often pitch upon him, even upon his hands or
head, and never one was known to sting him, vengeful as they were if
strangers made too free near their hives, or among the flower-beds my
master used to call their pleasure-grounds."

"What has become of old Ralph and the tortoise, Hallings?" asked L----,
as he stopt to take a melancholy survey of the altered scene. "The
gold-fish, of course, have been long destroyed, for I see the little
basin with its small fountain is quite choked up with dead leaves and
rubbish."

"Mr Heneage Devereux took out the gold-fish, sir, the week after my
master's death," replied the old butler; "but the tortoise had buried
himself for the winter; and when he crawled out the