of the few kept in habitable repair. The
garden was rich with white pinks, peonies, lilies of the valley, and
early roses, and there was a flagged path down the centre, between the
front door and a wicket-gate into a long lane bordered with hawthorn
hedges, the blossoms beginning to blush with the advance of the season.
Beyond, rose dimly the spires and towers of a cathedral town, one of
those county capitals to which the provincial magnates were wont to
resort during the winter, keeping a mansion there for the purpose, and
providing entertainment for the gentry of the place and neighbourhood.

Twilight was setting in when the Major began to catch glimpses of the
laced hats of coachman and footmen over the hedges, a lumbering made
itself heard, and by and by the vehicle halted at the gate. Such
a coach! It was only the second best, and the glories of its
landscape--painted sides were somewhat dimmed, the green and silver of
the fittings a little tarnished to a critical eye; yet it was a splendid
article, commodious and capacious, though ill-provided with air and
light. However, nobody cared for stuffiness, certainly not the three
young ladies, who, fan in hand, came tripping down the steps that
were unrolled for them. The eldest paused to administer a fee to their
entertainer's servants who had brought them home, and the coach rolled
on to dispose of the remainder of the freight.

The father waved greetings from one window, a rosy little audacious
figure in a night-dress peeped out furtively from another, and the
house-door was opened by a tall old soldier-servant, stiff as a ramrod,
with hair tightly tied and plastered up into a queue, and a blue and
brown livery which sat like a uniform.

"Well, young ladies," he said, "I hope you enjoyed yourselves."

"Vastly, thank you, Corporal Palmer. And how has it been with my father
in our absence?"

"Purely, Miss Harriet. He relished the Friar's chicken that Miss Delavie
left for him, and he amused himself for an hour with Master Eugene,
after which he did me the honour to play two plays at backgammon."

"I hope," said the eldest sister, coming up, "that the little rogue whom
I saw peeping from the window has not been troublesome."

"He has been as good as gold, madam. He played in master's room till
Nannerl called him to his bed, when he went at once, 'true to his
orders,' says the master. 'A fine soldier he will make,' says I to my
master."

Therewith the sisters mo