“We have been visiting Hartwell House, an old baronial residence, now the property of Dr. Lee, a whimsical old man.

“This house was for years the residence of Louis XVIII., and his queen died here.  The drawing-room is still kept as in those days; the blue damask on the walls has been changed by time to a brown.  The rooms are spacious and lofty, the chimney-pieces of richly carved marble.  The ceiling of one room has fine bas-relief allegorical figures.

“Books of antiquarian value are all around—­one whole floor is covered with them.  They are almost never opened.  In some of the rooms paintings are on the walls above the doors.

“Dr. Lee’s modern additions are mostly paintings of himself and a former wife, and are in very bad taste.  He has, however, two busts of Mrs. Somerville, from which I received the impression that she is handsome, but Mrs. Smyth tells me she is not so; certainly she is sculpturesque.

“The royal family, on their retreat from Hartwell House, left their prayer-book, and it still remains on its stand.  The room of the ladies of the bedchamber is papered, and the figure of a pheasant is the prevailing characteristic of the paper.  The room is called ’The Pheasant Room.’  One of the birds has been carefully cut out, and, it is said, was carried away as a memento by one of the damsels.

“Dr. Lee is second cousin to Sir George Lee, who died childless.  He inherits the estate, but not the title.  The estate has belonged to the Lees for four hundred years.  As the doctor was a Lee only through his mother, he was obliged to take her name on his accession to the property.  He applied to Parliament to be permitted to assume the title, and, being refused, from a strong Tory he became a Liberal, and delights in currying favor with the lowest classes; he has twice married below his rank.  Being remotely connected with the Hampdens, he claims John Hampden as one of his family, and keeps a portrait of him in a conspicuous place.

“A summer-house on the grounds was erected by Lady Elizabeth Lee, and some verses inscribed on its walls, written by her, show that the Lees have not always been fools.

“But Dr. Lee has his way of doing good.  Being fond of astronomy, he has bought an eight and a half feet equatorial telescope, and with a wisdom which one could scarcely expect, he employed Admiral Smyth to construct an observatory.  He has also a fine transit instrument, and the admiral, being his near neighbor, has the privilege of using the observatory as his own.  In the absence of the Lees he has a private key, with which he admits himself and Mrs. Smyth.  They make the observations (Mrs. Smyth is a very clever astronomer), sleep in a room called ‘The Admiral’s Room,’ find breakfast prepared for them in the morning, and return to their own house when they choose.

“I saw in the observatory a timepiece with a double second-hand; one of these could be stopped by a touch, and would, in that way, show an observer the instant when he thought a phenomenon, as an occultation for instance, had occurred, and yet permit him to go on with his count of the seconds, and, if necessary, correct his first impression.