es, though there
were many books on them; but the contents of the volumes were principally
manuscript, and relating to details connected with the Hanbury property.
There were also one or two dictionaries, gazetteers, works of reference
on the management of property; all of a very old date (the dictionary was
Bailey's, I remember; we had a great Johnson in my lady's room, but where
lexicographers differed, she generally preferred Bailey).

In this antechamber a footman generally sat, awaiting orders from my
lady; for she clung to the grand old customs, and despised any bells,
except her own little hand-bell, as modern inventions; she would have her
people always within summons of this silvery bell, or her scarce less
silvery voice. This man had not the sinecure you might imagine. He had
to reply to the private entrance; what we should call the back door in a
smaller house. As none came to the front door but my lady, and those of
the county whom she honoured by visiting, and her nearest acquaintance of
this kind lived eight miles (of bad road) off, the majority of comers
knocked at the nail-studded terrace-door; not to have it opened (for open
it stood, by my lady's orders, winter and summer, so that the snow often
drifted into the back hall, and lay there in heaps when the weather was
severe), but to summon some one to receive their message, or carry their
request to be allowed to speak to my lady. I remember it was long before
Mr. Gray could be made to understand that the great door was only open on
state occasions, and even to the last he would as soon come in by that as
the terrace entrance. I had been received there on my first setting foot
over my lady's threshold; every stranger was led in by that way the first
time they came; but after that (with the exceptions I have named) they
went round by the terrace, as it were by instinct. It was an assistance
to this instinct to be aware that from time immemorial, the magnificent
and fierce Hanbury wolf-hounds, which were extinct in every other part of
the island, had been and still were kept chained in the front quadrangle,
where they bayed through a great part of the day and night and were
always ready with their deep, savage growl at the sight of every person
and thing, excepting the man who fed them, my lady's carriage and four,
and my lady herself. It was pretty to see her small figure go up to the
great, crouching brutes thumping the flags with their heavy, wagg