rew in the park. The gallery is wainscoted in oak in
semicircular arched panels, alternately large and small, surmounted by a
frieze and a turreted and battlemented cornice. The ceiling is
elaborately carved in geometric patterns, and the tracery contains the
alternating arms and crests of Vernon and Manners: the remains are still
visible of the rich gilding and painting of this ceiling. In the
anteroom paintings are hung, and from it a strongly-barred door opens
upon a flight of stone steps leading down to the terrace and garden:
this is "Dorothy Vernon's Door;" and across the garden another flight of
steps leading to the terrace is known as "Dorothy Vernon's Steps." It
was the gentle maiden's flight through this door and up these steps to
elope with John Manners that carried the old house and all its broad
lands into the possession of the family now owning it. The state bedroom
is hung with Gobelin tapestry, illustrating AEsop's fables: the state
bed is fourteen feet high, and furnished in green silk velvet and white
satin, embroidered by needlework, and its last occupant was George IV.
The kitchen and range of domestic offices are extensive, and show the
marvellous amount of cooking that was carried on in the hospitable days
of Haddon; the kitchen has a ceiling supported by massive beams and a
solid oak column in the centre; there are two huge fireplaces, scores of
stoves, spits, pothooks, and hangers, large chopping-blocks, dressers,
and tables, with attendant bakehouses, ovens, pantries, and larders;
among the relics is an enormous salting-trough hollowed out of one
immense block of wood. Beyond the garden or lawn, one hundred and twenty
feet square, extends the terrace, planted with ancient yews, whose
gnarled roots intertwine with and displace the stones. This terrace
extends the full width of the outer or upper garden, and gives a
charming view of the southern front of the hall.

[Illustration: THE TERRACE, HADDON HALL.]

More romance hangs about Haddon than probably any other old baronial
hall in England, and it has therefore been for years an endless source
of inspiration for poets, artists, and novelists. Mrs. Radcliffe here
laid some of the scenes of the _Mysteries of Udolpho_. Bennett's "King
of the Peak" was Sir George Vernon, the hospitable owner of Haddon.
Scott has written of it, a host of artists have painted its most
attractive features, and many a poet has sung of the

"Hall of wassail which has