both sexes.






CHAPTER III.

"What can be worse,
Than to dwell here!"

_Paradise Lost._

IT was a long, narrow, low-roofed room, with a number of small windows,
that admitted feeble lights in every possible direction. The scanty
furniture bore every appearance of having been constructed at the same
time as the edifice; and the friendship thus early formed still seemed
to subsist, as the high-backed worked chairs adhered most pertinaciously
to the gray walls, on which hung, in narrow black frames, some of the
venerable ancestors of the Douglas family. A fire, which appeared to
have been newly kindled, was beginning to burn, but, previous to showing
itself in flame, had chosen to vent itself in smoke, with which
the room was completely filled, and the open windows seemed to produce
no other effect than that of admitting the rain and wind.

At the entrance of the stranger a flock of females rushed forward to meet
them. Douglas good humouredly submitted to be hugged by three long-chinned
spinsters, whom he recognised as his aunts; and warmly saluted five awkward
purple girls he guessed to be his sisters; while Lady Julian stood the image