ation, I was just as ignorant as a baby. That afternoon we set off
for Wales, and next day arrived at one of the most extraordinary
households, in the southern extremity of the principality, which it ever
was my fortune to visit.

The house was large and spacious, indeed a masterpiece of architecture,
and probably had been built in the time of Charles the Second. It stood
upon the slope of a hill, and immediately below were a succession of
terraces, with walks of smooth green turf, and exotic shrubs, which in
summer must be most luxuriant. It was winter when I visited at Mervyn
Hall, but, even then, the terraces were beautiful. Every tree and spray
was coated with armour of clear crystalline ice, except the thick old
yew-hedge at the bottom, which kept its coat of dark perennial green. The
Hall commanded the prospect of a large and fertile valley, diversified by
wood and domain, tower and village spire; and in more than one place, a
pillar of smoke, curling lazily upwards, marked the situation of a famous
forge, or foundery. It was, in fact, one of the great iron districts,
though you scarcely could have believed so by day; but at night, fire
after fire seemed to burst out all down the reach of the valley; and
probably years had gone by since the smallest of these was quenched. It is
not often that nature lavishes her beauty and her wealth so prodigally
upon the selfsame spot.

Uncle Scripio strode into the house with the air of a proprietor. I am not
sure that he had not some interest in the concern, for Mervyn Hall was a
kind of mystery to the neighbours. We were shown into a handsome apartment
lined with black oak, where a regiment of cavaliers might have dined with
both credit and satisfaction; but times had altered, and the
banqueting-hall was now put to different uses. On two sofas and a table
lay a pile of maps and plans, sufficient, according to my limited
comprehension, for a survey of the whole world. Then there was an
ingenious model of a suspension bridge, where a railway of white-painted
cord spanned a valley of undulating putty, with a stream in the centre,
which bore evident marks of being ravished from a fractured looking-glass.
Bundles of thick clumsy sticks--they might be instruments--with brass
knobs at the top, like the morgenstern of a Norwegian watchman, were
huddled into the corners. There was a grievous hole in the centre of the
carpet; and several but-ends of cigars scattered on the mantelpiece,