over of the olden time; and of those
four, the one which we used to love best to look at was--THE MAINS. No
need to describe it in many words. A Hall on a river-side, embosomed in
woods--holms and meadows winding away in front, with their low thick
hedgerows and stately single trees--on--on--on--as far as the eye can
reach, a crowd of grove-tops--elms chiefly, or beeches--and a beautiful
boundary of blue hills. "Good-day, Sergeant Stewart! farewell,
Ma'am--farewell!" And in half an hour we are sitting in the moss-house
at the edge of the outer garden, and gazing up at the many-windowed grey
walls of the MAINS, and its high steep-ridged roof, discoloured by the
weather-stains of centuries. "The taxes on such a house," quod Sergeant
Stewart, "are of themselves enough to ruin a man of moderate fortune--so
the Mains, sir, has been uninhabited for a good many years." But he had
been speaking to one who knew far more about the Mains than he could
do--and who was not sorry that the Old Place was allowed to stand,
undisturbed by any rich upstart, in the venerable silence of its own
decay. And this is the moss-house that we helped to build with our own
hands, at least to hang the lichen tapestry, and stud the cornice with
shells! We were one of the paviers of that pebbled floor--and that
bright scintillating piece of spar, the centre of the circle, came all
the way from Derbyshire in the knapsack of a geologist, who died a
Professor. It is strange the roof has not fallen in long ago; but what a
slight ligature will often hold together a heap of ruins from tumbling
into nothing! The old moss-house, though somewhat decrepit, is alive;
and, if these swallows don't take care, they will be stunning themselves
against our face, jerking out and in, through door and window, twenty
times in a minute. Yet with all that twittering of swallows--and with
all that frequent crowing of a cock--and all that cawing of rooks--and
cooing of doves--and lowing of cattle along the holms--and bleating of
lambs along the braes--it is nevertheless a pensive place; and here sit
we like a hermit, world-sick, and to be revived only by hearkening in
the solitude to the voices of other years.

What more mournful thought than that of a Decayed Family--a high-born
race gradually worn out, and finally ceasing to be! The remote ancestors
of this House were famous men of war--then some no less famous
statesmen--then poets and historians--then minds still of fine, b