prosperity—­followed by the dignity of a peerage.  The latest alterations appear to have been made during the Strawberry Hill epoch, when most of the mullioned windows had been transformed to suit the prevailing taste.  Some of the building—­a little of it—­seemed habitable, but in the greater part the gables were tottering, the stucco frontage peeling and falling, and the windows broken and shuttered.  In front of this wreck of a building stretched the overgrown remains of what once had been a terrace, bounded by large stone globes, now moss-grown and half hidden under long grass.  It was the very picture of desolation and proud poverty.

“We drove up to what had once been the entrance to the servants’ hall, for the principal doorway had long been disused, and descending from the trap I was conducted to a small panelled apartment, where some freshly cut logs did their best to give out a certain amount of heat.  Of the hospitality meted out to me that day I can only hint with mournful appreciation.  I was made welcome with all the resources which the family had available.  But the place was a veritable vault, and cold and damp as such.  I think that this state of things had been endured so long and with such haughty silence by the inmates that it had passed into a sort of normal condition with them, and remained unnoticed except by new-comers.  A few old domestics stuck by the family in its fallen fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with dignified ceremony.  After lunch a tour of the house commenced.  Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial Rainham, needs the pen of the author of Lammermoor to describe.  It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style, with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and ghostly presentments of their originals.  I do not think a fire could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, and some of the portraits literally sagged in their frames with accumulations of rubbish which had dropped behind the canvases.  Many of the pictures were of no value except for their associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family group, the principal figure in which was a young lady displaying too little modesty and too much bosom.  Another may have been a Vandyk, while one or two were early works representing gallants of Elizabeth’s time in ruffs and feathered caps.  The rest were for the most part but wooden ancestors displaying curled wigs, legs which lacked drawing, and high-heeled shoes.  A few old cabinets remained, and a glorious suite of chairs of Queen Anne’s time—­these, however, were perishing, like the rest—­from want of proper care and firing.