on one side, holding didactic ribbons,
painted in fresco on the walls.

A delightful lane, overshadowed with noble trees, that ran by Griff House,
the birthplace of George Eliot, led to the lodge of Arbury Hall, the home
of Sir Roger Newdigate. Arbury Hall was situated in the midst of a fine old
forest, and it was originally a large quadrangular brick house. Sir Roger
rebuilt it, acting as his own architect, and made it into a modern dwelling
of the commodious gothic Order. This house and its owner appear in "Mr.
Gilfil's Love Story" as Cheverel Manor and Sir Christopher Cheverel. In the
fourth chapter the reader is told that,--

For the next ten years Sir Christopher was occupied with the
architectural metamorphosis of his old family mansion, thus
anticipating through the prompting of his individual taste that general
re-action from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style towards a
restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth
century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness
of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his
fox-hunting neighbors.... "An obstinate, crotchety man," said his
neighbors. But I, who have seen Cheverel Manor as he bequeathed it to
his heirs, rather attribute that unswerving architectural purpose of
his, conceived and carried out through long years of systematic
personal exertion, to something of the fervor of genius.

In this story an incident in the life of Sir Roger Newdigate may have been
made use of by George Eliot. He was childless, and adopted a cottager's
child he and his wife heard singing at its father's door one day. They
educated the child, who proved to have a fine voice and a passionate love
of music.

_Janet's Repentance_ also has its scenes from actual life. Dr. Dempster was
thought to be recognized by his neighbors as a well-known person in
Nuneaton. Milby and its High street are no other than Nuneaton and its
market-place. The character of the town and the manner of life there are
all sketched from the Nuneaton of George Eliot's childhood. The school she
attended was very near the vicarage. While she was attending this school,
when about nine years old, a young curate from a neighboring hamlet was
permitted by the Bishop to give Sunday-evening lectures in the Nuneaton
church, with the results described in _Janet's Repentance_.

In _Adam Bede_ there is