shore of the river, put up his horse at one of the inns, and then,
with a beating heart, remounted the hill, and entering the park by one
of its lodges found himself once more in the haunts of his childhood.




CHAPTER LXIX.

Oh, the steward, the steward: I might have guessed as much.
Tales of the Crusaders.

The evening was already beginning to close, and Clarence was yet
wandering in the park, and retracing, with his heart's eye, each knoll
and tree and tuft once so familiar to his wanderings.

At the time we shall again bring him personally before the reader, he
was leaning against an iron fence that, running along the left wing of
the house, separated the pleasure-grounds from the park, and gazing
with folded arms and wistful eyes upon the scene on which the dusk of
twilight was gradually gathering.

The house was built originally in the reign of Charles II.; it had
since received alteration and additions, and now presented to the eye
a vast pile of Grecian or rather Italian architecture, heterogeneously
blended with the massive window, the stiff coping, and the heavy roof
which the age immediately following the Revolution introduced. The
extent of the building and the grandeur of the circling demesnes were
sufficient to render the mansion imposing in effect; while, perhaps,
the style of the architecture was calculated to conjoin a stately