the stairs, to the left, and the kitchens running out to the back; and
opposite to them, enclosing a little grassed court, the brewhouse and
the bakehouse. Behind all lay the kitchen gardens; and behind the
brewhouse a row of old yews and a part of the lawn, that also ran before
the house. The house was of three stories high, and contained about
twenty rooms with the attics.

It is strange how some houses, upon a first acquaintance with them, seem
like old friends; and how others, though one may have lived in them
fifty years are never familiar to those who live in them. Now Hare
Street House was one of the first kind. This very day that I first set
eyes on it, it was as if I had lived there as a child. The sunlight
streamed into the Great Chamber, and past the yews into the parlour; and
upon the lawns outside; and the noise of the bees in the limes was as if
an organ played softly; and it was all to me as if I had known it a
hundred years.

My Cousin Tom carried me upstairs presently to the Guest-chamber--a
great panelled room, with a wide fire-place, above the dining-room--that
I might wash my hands and face before dinner; and my heart smote me a
little for all my thoughts of him, for, when all was said, he had
received me very hospitably, and was now bidding me welcome again, and
that I must live there as long as I would, and think of it as my home.

"And here," he said, opening a door at the foot of the bed, "is a little
closet where your man can hang your clothes; it looks out upon the yard;
and my room is beyond it, over the kitchen."

I thanked him again and again for his kindness; and so he left me.