d it. There was a ground-floor and a floor above it--and that
was all.
On either side of the passage, on the lower floor, were two rooms. At
the right-hand side, on entering by the front-door, there was a kitchen,
with its outhouses attached. The room next to the kitchen looked into
the garden. In Reuben Limbrick's time it was called the study
and contained a small collection of books and a large store of
fishing-tackle. On the left-hand side of the passage there was a
drawing-room situated at the back of the house, and communicating with
a dining-room in the front. On the upper floor there were five
bedrooms--two on one side of the passage, corresponding in size with the
dining-room and the drawing-room below, but not opening into each other;
three on the other side of the passage, consisting of one larger room
in front, and of two small rooms at the back. All these were solidly and
completely furnished. Money had not been spared, and workmanship had not
been stinted. It was all substantial--and, up stairs and down stairs, it
was all ugly.
The situation of Salt Patch was lonely. The lands of the
market-gardeners separated it from other houses. Jealously surrounded
by its own high walls, the cottage suggested, even to the most
unimaginative persons, the idea of an asylum or a prison. Reuben
Limbrick's relatives, occasionally coming to stay with him, found the
place prey on their spirits, and rejoiced when the time came for going
home again. They were never pressed to stay against their will. Reuben
Limbrick was not a hospitable or a sociable man. He set very little
value on human sympathy, in his attacks of illness; and he bore
congratulations impatiently, in his intervals of health. "I care about
nothing but fishing," he used to say. "I find my dog very good company.
And I am quite happy as long as I am free from pain."
On his death-bed, he divided his money justly enough among his
relations. The only part of his Will which exposed itself to unfavorable
criticism, was a clause conferring a legacy on one of his sisters (then
a widow) who had estranged herself from her family by marrying beneath
her. The family agreed in considering this unhappy person as undeserving
of notice or benefit. Her name was Hester Dethridge. It proved to be
a great aggravation of Hester's offenses, in the eyes of Hester's
relatives, when it was discovered that she possessed a life-interest in
Salt Patch, and an income of two hundred a ye
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