nown sometimes by her grand-daughters to enlarge
on the goodness of the land thereabouts, and to express a hope that when
Peter's guardians came into power, they would bring it under the plough
again. She went to church by a little footpath, and always conducted
herself with great decorum, though, twice or thrice during the reading
of the lessons, she had startled the congregation by standing up with a
scared expression of countenance, and looking about her while she leaned
on her high staff as if she thought some one had called her; but she was
in her ninety-fifth year, and this circumstance, together with the love
and pity felt for her, would easily have excused far greater
eccentricities.

She had felt very keenly the desertion of her second and her fourth
sons, who had run away from home when the elder was barely eighteen, and
without previous quarrel or unkindness so far as was known; nor was it
believed that they had ever come to see her since, or sought her
forgiveness. Her eldest son, while still in the flower of his age, had
died by his own hand; her youngest son had died in the West Indies, of
fever; and the third, the only one who remained with her, had never been
either a comfort or a credit to his family: he had but lately died,
leaving a son and a daughter. Of these, the daughter was with her
grandmother, and the son was just dead, having left an only child, his
heir.

At one end of the house, as had been said, was an orchard, at the other
was a large garden. If the desolate appearance of the house was likely
to raise oppressive feelings in a stranger's mind, how much more this
garden! It was a large oblong piece of ground, the walls of which
enclosed the western end of the house completely. One of them ran
parallel with the front, and a massive oaken door somewhat relieved its
flat monotony; but this door afforded no ingress, it was bolted and
barred from within.

The garden was that special portion of her inheritance on which the
ancient owner rested her eyes; morning, noon, and evening she would sit
gazing on its green fishpond, all overgrown with duckweed, on the lawn
now fast being encroached on by shrubbery, and on the bed of lilies
which from year to year spread and flourished.

But she never entered it, nor did any one else.

That end of the house had but four windows on the ground floor, and
these were all strongly barred with iron, the places they lighted
consisting of kitchen, offices, and