it) is a perfect
Paradise of a place. It is all over creepers, and bow-windows,
and verandahs. A wavy lawn tumbles up and down all round it, with
flower-beds of wonderful shapes, and zigzag gravel walks, and beautiful
but damp shrubberies of myrtles and glistening laurustines, which have
procured it its change of name. It was called Little Bullock's Pound
in old Doctor Ponto's time. I had a view of the pretty grounds, and the
stable, and the adjoining village and church, and a great park beyond,
from the windows of the bedroom whither Ponto conducted me. It was the
yellow bedroom, the freshest and pleasantest of bed-chambers; the air
was fragrant with a large bouquet that was placed on the writing-table;
the linen was fragrant with the lavender in which it had been laid; the
chintz hangings of the bed and the big sofa were, if not fragrant with
flowers, at least painted all over with them; the pen-wiper on the table
was the imitation of a double dahlia; and there was accommodation for my
watch in a sun-flower on the mantelpiece. A scarlet-leaved creeper came
curling over the windows, through which the setting sun was pouring a
flood of golden light. It was all flowers and freshness. Oh, how unlike
those black chimney-pots in St. Alban's Place, London, on which these
weary eyes are accustomed to look.

'It must be all happiness here, Ponto,' said I, flinging myself down
into the snug BERGERE, and inhaling such a delicious draught of country
air as all the MILLEFLEURS of Mr. Atkinson's shop cannot impart to any
the most expensive pocket-handkerchief.

'Nice place, isn't it?' said Ponto. 'Quiet and unpretending. I like
everything quiet. You've not brought your valet with you? Stripes will
arrange your dressing things;' and that functionary, entering at the
same time, proceeded to gut my portmanteau, and to lay out the black
kerseymeres, 'the rich cut velvet Genoa waistcoat,' the white choker,
and other polite articles of evening costume, with great gravity and
despatch. 'A great dinner-party,' thinks I to myself, seeing these
preparations (and not, perhaps, displeased at the idea that some of the
best people in the neighbourhood were coming to see me). 'Hark, theres
the first bell ringing! 'said Ponto, moving away; and, in fact, a
clamorous harbinger of victuals began clanging from the stable
turret, and announced the agreeable fact that dinner would appear in
half-an-hour. 'If the dinner is as grand as the dinner-bell,'