"Too low; grievously damp."

By this time, however, we had arrived at the end of our list; nobody
could remember another place to be let, or likely to be let, and
confessing ourselves too fastidious, we went again over our catalogue
_raisonée_ with expectations much sobered, and objections much
modified, and were beginning to find out that Cranley Hall was not so
very large, nor Lanton Abbey so exceedingly damp, when one of our party
exclaimed suddenly, "We never thought of Hatherden Hill! surely that is
small enough and dry enough!" and it being immediately recollected that
Hatherden was only a mile off, we lost sight of all faults in this great
recommendation, and wrote immediately to the lawyer who had the charge
of letting the place, whilst I myself and my most efficient assistant,
sallied forth to survey it on the instant.

It was a bright cool afternoon about the middle of August, and we
proceeded in high spirits towards our destination, talking, as, we went,
of the excellence and agreeableness of our delightful friends, and
anticipating the high intellectual pleasure, the gratification to the
taste and the affections, which our renewed intercourse with persons so
accomplished and so amiable, could not fail to afford; both agreeing
that Hatherden was the very place we wanted, the very situation, the
very distance, the very size. In agreeing with me, however, my companion
could not help reminding me rather maliciously how very much, in our
late worthy neighbours, the Norrises' time, I had been used to hate and
shun this paragon of places; how frequently I had declared Hatherden
too distant for a walk, and too near for a drive; how constantly I had
complained of fatigue in mounting the hill, and of cold in crossing
the common; and how, finally, my half yearly visits of civility had