At last they reached Mr. Buxton’s house.  It was in the main street, and the front door opened upon it by a flight of steps.  Wide on each side extended the stone-coped windows.  It was in reality a mansion, and needed not the neighboring contrast of the cottages on either side to make it look imposing.  When they went in, they entered a large hall, cool even on that burning July day, with a black and white flag floor, and old settees round the walls, and great jars of curious china, which were filled with pot-pourrie.  The dusky gloom was pleasant, after the glare of the street outside; and the requisite light and cheerfulness were given by the peep into the garden, framed, as it were, by the large door-way that opened into it.  There were roses, and sweet-peas, and poppies—­a rich mass of color, which looked well, set in the somewhat sombre coolness of the hall.  All the house told of wealth—­wealth which had accumulated for generations, and which was shown in a sort of comfortable, grand, unostentatious way.  Mr. Buxton’s ancestors had been yeomen; but, two or three generations back, they might, if ambitious, have taken their place as country gentry, so much had the value of their property increased, and so great had been the amount of their savings.  They, however, continued to live in the old farm till Mr. Buxton’s grandfather built the house in Combehurst of which I am speaking, and then he felt rather ashamed of what he had done; it seemed like stepping out of his position.  He and his wife always sat in the best kitchen; and it was only after his son’s marriage that the entertaining rooms were furnished.  Even then they were kept with closed shutters and bagged-up furniture during the lifetime of the old couple, who, nevertheless, took a pride in adding to the rich-fashioned ornaments and grand old china of the apartments.  But they died, and were gathered to their fathers, and young Mr. and Mrs. Buxton (aged respectively fifty-one and forty-five) reigned in their stead.  They had the good taste to make no sudden change; but gradually the rooms assumed an inhabited appearance, and their son and daughter grew up in the enjoyment of great wealth, and no small degree of refinement.  But as yet they held back modestly from putting themselves in any way on a level with the county people.  Lawrence Buxton was sent to the same school as his father had been before him; and the notion of his going to college to complete his education was, after some deliberation, negatived.  In process of time he succeeded his father, and married a sweet, gentle lady, of a decayed and very poor county family, by whom he had one boy before she fell into delicate health.  His sister had married a man whose character was worse than his fortune, and had been left a widow.  Everybody thought her husband’s death a blessing; but she loved him, in spite of negligence and many grosser faults; and so, not many years after, she died, leaving her little daughter to her brother’s care, with many a broken-voiced entreaty that he would never speak a word against the dead father of her child.  So the little Erminia was taken home by her self-reproaching uncle, who felt now how hardly he had acted towards his sister in breaking off all communication with her on her ill-starred marriage.