y was done to the oldest part.
Mrs. Norton says Graylees is called the "miniature Warwick," but it
doesn't look a miniature anything: it seems enormous. There's a great
hall, with suits of armour scattered about, and weapons of all periods
arranged in intricate patterns on the stone wall; and a minstrels'
gallery, and quantities of grand old Tudor and Stuart furniture; there's
a haunted picture-gallery where a murdered bride walks each Christmas
Eve, beautifully dressed; there's a suite of rooms in which kings and
queens have occasionally slept since the time when Henry Seventh
reigned; there's a priest's "hidie hole," and secret dungeons under the
big dining-hall where people used to revel while their prisoners
writhed; and--but I haven't seen nearly all yet.

The room allotted to me looks down from its high tower on to a mossy
moat choked with pink and white water lilies; on a stone terrace this
side of a sunken garden, a peacock plays sentinel, with his tail spread
like a jewelled shield; and against the sky dark, horizontal branches of
Lebanon cedars stretch, like arms of black-clad priests pronouncing a
blessing. May the blessing rest upon this house forever!

I hardly saw the country through which we came, though it was George
Eliot's country; and I half expected something to happen as soon as we
arrived; Sir Lionel perhaps turning on me at last, and saying icily: "I
know everything, but don't want a scandal. Go quietly, at once."

Nothing of the sort came to pass, however. We had tea in the great hall,
brought by an old butler who had known Sir Lionel when he visited the
uncle who left Graylees to him. Afterward, Mrs. Norton showed me "my
room," where already a maid engaged for "Miss Lethbridge" had unpacked
most of my things, the big luggage having arrived before us. My heart
gave a jump when I saw the drawers, and big cedar-lined wardrobes full
of finery; but settled down again when I remembered that almost
everything belonged to Ellaline, and that my legitimate possessions
could be packed again in about five minutes.

Before the change of friendship's weather at Chester, I think Sir Lionel
would have wanted to take me round his domain, indoors and out, but no
such suggestion was made. I was in my room, and there I stayed; but I
felt too restless to settle down and write to you. I kept waiting for
something, as you do for a clock to strike, when you know it is bound to
strike soon.

By and by it was time t