f detail--a-combination of effect throwing an air of
picturesque beauty on the whole, which not all the flimsy and frittered
"Gothic" can convey to the mansions of modern antiques. For the timber
employed in its erection a forest must have been laid prostrate. Huge
arched fire-places; chimney-pieces carved with armorial bearings; oak
tables absolutely joisted to sustain their vast bulk; bedsteads that
would not have groaned with the weight of a Titan;--the whole intended
to oppose a ponderous resistance to the ravages of time and fashion. Not
a vestige is left. Those laughing halls echo no more with the loud and
boisterous revel; the music of the "many twinkling" feet is gone;
scarcely a stone is left upon its fellow; a few straggling trees alone
mark the site. The beech and willow are waving o'er its hearth! Who
would build for the destroyer? And yet man, with the end of these
vanities in prospect, daily, hourly still builds on; his schemes and his
projects extending through the long vista of succeeding ages, as though
his dwelling were eternal, and his own fabric should survive the ruin
and the doom of all!

A long train of ancestors bearing the name of Holt occupied this
dwelling as the family mansion. The manor of Spotland, forfeited by the
rebellion of Paslew, Abbot of Whalley, was granted by Henry the Eighth
to Thomas Holt, afterwards knighted in Scotland by Edward, Earl of
Hertford, in the thirty-sixth year of the reign of that monarch. The
present possessor of the same name, grandson to Sir Thomas, resided at
Grislehurst during the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and that of
James. He married Constance, the daughter of Sir Edward Littleton of
Pillaton Hall, Stafford. One son, Francis, and a daughter named
Constance, were the fruit of this union. At the commencement of our
narrative he had been for some years a widower, and his son was then
absent on foreign travel.

It was in the memorable year 1603, the last of Elizabeth. The rebellion
in Ireland had been smothered, if not extinguished; and the great
O'Neale, Earl of Tyrone and King of Ulster, together with many other
chiefs, were forced to remain concealed in woods and morasses. Outlawed
and outcast, some of them crossed over into England, remaining there
until pardoned by the Queen.

Constance was now in her nineteenth year. Bright as her own morn of
life, she had seen but few clouds in that season of hope and delight.
Sorrow was to her scarce known, save