Smithson's Park, and
Rood Hall lay on the low ground in front of them, with its back to the
river. It was an old red brick house in the Tudor style, with an
advanced porch, and four projecting wings, three stories high, with
picturesque spire roofs overtopping the main building. Around the house
ran a boldly-carved stone parapet, bearing the herons and bulrushes
which were the cognisance of the noble race for which the mansion was
built. Numerous projecting mullioned windows broke up the line of the
park front. Lesbia was fain to own that Rood Hall was even better than
Park Lane. In London Mr. Smithson had created a palace; but it was a new
palace, which still had a faint flavour of bricks and mortar, and which
was apt to remind the spectator of that wonderful erection of Aladdin,
the famous Parvenu of Eastern story. Here, in Berkshire, Mr. Smithson
had dropped into a nest which had been kept warm for him for three
centuries, aired and beautified by generations of a noble race which had
obligingly decayed and dwindled in order to make room for Mr. Smithson.
Here the Parvenu had bought a home mellowed by the slow growth of years,
touched into poetic beauty by the chastening fingers of time. His artist
friends told him that every brick in the red walls was 'precious,' a
mystery of colour which only a painter could fitly understand and value.
Here he had bought associations, he had bought history. He had bought
the dust of Elizabeth's senators, the bones of her court beauties. The
coffins in the Mausoleum yonder in the ferny depths of the Park, the
village church just outside the gates--these had all gone with the
property.

Lesbia went up the grand staircase, through the long corridors, in a
dream of wonder. Brought up at Fellside, in that new part of the
Westmoreland house which had been built by her grandmother and had no
history, she felt thrilled by the sober splendour of this fine old
manorial mansion. All was sound and substantial, as if created
yesterday, so well preserved had been the goods and chattels of the
noble race; and yet all wore such unmistakeable marks of age. The deep
rich colouring of the wainscot, the faded hues of the tapestry, the
draperies of costliest velvet and brocade, were all sobered by the
passing of years.

Mr. Smithson had shown his good taste in having kept all things as Sir
Hubert Heronville, the last of his race, had left them; and the
Heronvilles had been one of those grand old Tory