to whom we were engaged in England were Florac and his wife,
Madame la Princesse de Moncontour, who were determined to spend the
Christmas holidays at the Princess's country seat. It was for the first
time since their reconciliation, that the Prince and Princess dispensed
their hospitalities at the latter's chateau. It is situated, as the
reader has already been informed, at some five miles from the town of
Newcome; away from the chimneys and smoky atmosphere of that place, in a
sweet country of rural woodlands; over which quiet villages, grey church
spires, and ancient gabled farmhouses are scattered: still wearing the
peaceful aspect which belonged to them when Newcome was as yet but an
antiquated country town, before mills were erected on its river-banks,
and dyes and cinders blackened its stream. Twenty years since Newcome
Park was the only great house in that district; now scores of fine
villas have sprung up in the suburb lying between the town and park.
Newcome New Town, as everybody knows, has grown round the park-gates,
and the New Town Hotel (where the railway station is) is a splendid
structure in the Tudor style, more ancient in appearance than the park
itself; surrounded by little antique villas with spiked gables, stacks
of crooked chimneys, and plate-glass windows looking upon trim lawns;
with glistening hedges of evergreens, spotless gravel walks, and
Elizabethan gig-houses. Under the great railway viaduct of the New Town,
goes the old tranquil winding London highroad, once busy with a score of
gay coaches, and ground by innumerable wheels: but at a few miles
from the New Town Station the road has become so mouldy that the grass
actually grows on it; and Rosebury, Madame de Moncontour's house, stands
at one end of a village-green, which is even more quiet now than it was
a hundred years ago.

When first Madame de Florac bought the place, it scarcely ranked amongst
the country-houses; and she, the sister of manufacturers at Newcome and
Manchester, did not of course visit the county families. A homely little
body, married to a Frenchman from whom she was separated, may or may not
have done a great deal of good in her village, have had pretty gardens,
and won prizes at the Newcome flower and fruit shows; but, of course,
she was nobody in such an aristocratic county as we know ------shire
is. She had her friends and relatives from Newcome. Many of them were
Quakers--many were retail shopkeepers. She even fre