no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
ears.

You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.

Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a
ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border
and joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family removed
forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement here, from
which he has not since emerged.

At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which you
find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little balcony
before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands to the
cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.

There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her _Whole Duty of
Man_, and her _Pilgrim's Progress_; and, in a file beside them, her
books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,