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A HOUSE-PARTY.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
DON GESUALDO.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
A RAINY JUNE.
It is an August morning. It is an old English manor-house. There is abreakfast-room hung with old gilded leather of the times of the Stuarts;it has oak furniture of the same period; it has leaded lattices withstained glass in some of their frames, and the motto of the house in oldFrench, "J'ay bon vouloir," emblazoned there with the crest of a heronresting in a crown. Thence, windows open on to a green, quaint, lovelygarden, which was laid out by Monsieur Beaumont when he planned thegardens of Hampton Court. There are clipped yew-tree walks and arborsand fantastic forms; there are stone terraces and steps like those ofHaddon, and there are peacocks which pace and perch upon them; there arebeds full of all the flowers which blossomed in the England of theStuarts, and birds dart and butterflies pass above them; there are hugeold trees, cedars, lime, hornbeam; beyond the gardens there are thewoods and grassy lawns of the home park.
The place is called Surrenden Court, and is one of the houses of George,Earl of Usk,—his favorite house in what pastoral people call autumn,and what he calls the shooting season.