walked downward from the
moment of entering it, till at last, when they reached a wooded plateau
about a hundred feet above the river, the house itself came suddenly
into view.

That was a house of houses! The large main building, as distinguished
from the lower stone portions to the north which represented a fragment
of the older Elizabethan house, had been in its day the crown and
boast of Jacobean house-architecture. It was fretted and jewelled with
Renaissance terra-cotta work from end to end; each gable had its lace
work, each window its carved setting. And yet the lines of the whole
were so noble, genius had hit the general proportions so finely, that
no effect of stateliness or grandeur had been missed through all the
accumulation of ornament. Majestic relic of a vanished England, the
house rose amid the August woods rich in every beauty that site, and
wealth, and centuries could give to it. The river ran about it as though
it loved it. The cedars which had kept it company for well nigh two
centuries gathered proudly round it; the deer grouped themselves in the
park beneath it, as though they were conscious elements in a great whole
of loveliness.

The two friends were admitted by a housemaid who happened to be busy in
the hall, and whose red cheeks and general breathlessness bore witness
to the energy of the storm of preparation now sweeping through the
house.

The famous hall to which Elsmere at once drew Langham's attention was,
however, in no way remarkable for size or height. It told comparatively
little of seignorial dignity, but it was as though generation after
generation had employed upon its perfecting the craft of its most
delicate fingers, the love of its most fanciful and ingenious spirits.
Over-head, the stucco-work ceiling, covered with stags and birds and
strange heraldic creatures unknown to science, had the deep creamy tint,
the consistency and surface of antique ivory. From the white and gilt
frieze beneath, untouched, so Robert explained, since the Jacobean days
when it was first executed, hung Renaissance tapestries which would have
made the heart's delight of any romantic child, so rich they were in
groves of marvellous trees hung with red and golden fruits, in far
reaching palaces and rock-built citadels, in flying shepherdesses and
pursuing shepherds. Between the tapestries again, there were breadths of
carved panelling, crowded with all things round and sweet, with fruits
and flowers