principal objects named; and, among others, the house, the orchard, and the
lawn. The building was of stone--as is common with most of the better sort
of houses in the country--was long, irregular, and had that air of
solid comfort about it, which it is usual to see in buildings of that
description. The walls were not whitewashed, according to the lively tastes
of our Dutch fellow-colonists, who appear to expend all their vivacity in
the pipe and the brush, but were left in their native grey; a circumstance
that rendered the form and dimensions of the structure a little less
distinct, at a first glance, than they might otherwise have proved. As
I gazed at the spot, however, I began to fancy it a charm, to find the
picture thus sobered down; and found a pleasure in drawing the different
angles, and walls, and chimneys, and roofs, from this back-ground, by means
of the organ of sight. On the whole, I thought the little sequestered bay,
the wooded and rocky shores, the small but well distributed lawn, the
orchard, with all the other similar accessories, formed together one of the
prettiest places of the sort I had ever seen. Thinking so, I was not slow
in saying as much to my companion. I was thought to have some taste in
these matters, and had been consulted on the subject of laying out grounds
by one or two neighbours in the county.

"Whose house is it, Dirck?" I enquired; "and how came you to know anything
about it?"

"That is Lilacsbush," answered my friend; "and it belongs to my mother's
cousin, Herman Mordaunt."

I had heard of Herman, or, as it is pronounced, Harmar Mordaunt. He was
a man of considerable note in the colony, having been the son of a Major
Mordaunt, of the British army, who had married the heiress of a wealthy
Dutch merchant, whence the name of Herman; which had descended to the son