uble pile of buildings, between which ran a
county road.

This establishment was a county as well as a town institution, and,
theoretically, one group of its buildings was devoted to the reception
of county paupers, while the other was assigned to the poor of
Sevenoaks. Practically, the keeper of both mingled his boarders
indiscriminately, to suit his personal convenience.

The hill, as it climbed somewhat abruptly from the western bank of the
stream--it did this in the grand leisure of the old geologic
centuries--apparently got out of breath and sat down when its task was
half done. Where it sat, it left a beautiful plateau of five or six
acres, and from this it rose, and went on climbing, until it reached the
summit of its effort, and descended the other side. On the brow of this
plateau stood seven huge oaks which the chopper's axe, for some reason
or another, had spared; and the locality, in all the early years of
settlement, was known by the name of "The Seven Oaks." They formed a
notable landmark, and, at last, the old designation having been worn by
usage, the town was incorporated with the name of Sevenoaks, in a single
word.

On this plateau, the owner of the mill, Mr. Robert Belcher--himself an
exceptional product of the village--had built his residence--a large,
white, pretentious dwelling, surrounded and embellished by all the
appointments of wealth. The house was a huge cube, ornamented at its
corners and cornices with all possible flowers of a rude architecture,
reminding one of an elephant, that, in a fit of incontinent playfulness,
had indulged in antics characteristic of its clumsy bulk and brawn.
Outside were ample stables, a green-house, a Chinese pagoda that was
called "the summer-house," an exquisite garden and trees, among which
latter were carefully cherished the seven ancient oaks that had given
the town its name.

Robert Belcher was not a gentleman. He supposed himself to be one, but
he was mistaken. Gentlemen of wealth usually built a fine house; so Mr.
Belcher built one. Gentlemen kept horses, a groom and a coachman; Mr.
Belcher did the same. Gentlemen of wealth built green-houses for
themselves and kept a gardener; Mr. Belcher could do no less. He had no
gentlemanly tastes, to be sure, but he could buy or hire these for
money; so he bought and hired them; and when Robert Belcher walked
through his stables and jested with his men, or sauntered into his
green-house and about his grounds, h