rch. That was at an age when her
enthusiasm found indiscriminate food in whatever had a hold upon her
affections, the nearer her heart being of course the more admirable in
itself, and it would be difficult to say which she loved the most
ardently, her city home in Woolstone-lane, or Hiltonbury Holt, the old
family seat, where her father was a welcome guest whenever his
constitution required relaxation from the severe toils of a London
rector.

Woolstone-lane was a locality that sorely tried the coachmen of Mrs.
Charlecote's West End connections, situate as it was on the very banks of
the Thames, and containing little save offices and warehouses, in the
midst of which stood Honora's home. It was not the rectory, but had been
inherited from City relations, and it antedated the Fire, so that it was
one of the most perfect remnants of the glories of the merchant princes
of ancient London. It had a court to itself, shut in by high walls, and
paved with round-headed stones, with gangways of flags in mercy to the
feet; the front was faced with hewn squares after the pattern of Somerset
House, with the like ponderous sashes, and on a smaller scale, the Louis
XIV. pediment, apparently designed for the nesting-place of swallows and
sparrows. Within was a hall, panelled with fragrant softly-tinted cedar
wood, festooned with exquisite garlands of fruit and flowers, carved by
Gibbons himself, with all his peculiarities of rounded form and delicate
edge. The staircase and floor were of white stone, tinted on sunny days
with reflections from the windows' three medallions of yellow and white
glass, where Solomon, in golden mantle and crowned turban, commanded the
division of a stout lusty child hanging by one leg; superintended the
erection of a Temple worthy of Haarlem; or graciously welcomed a
recoiling stumpy Vrow of a Queen of Sheba, with golden hair all down her
back.

The river aspect of the house had come to perfection at the Elizabethan
period, and was sculptured in every available nook with the chevron and
three arrows of the Fletchers' Company, and a merchant's mark, like a
figure of four with a curly tail. Here were the oriel windows of the
best rooms, looking out on a grassplat, small enough in country eyes, but
most extensive for the situation, with straight gravelled walks, and low
lilac and laburnum trees, that came into profuse blossom long before
their country cousins, but which, like the crocuses and snowdrops