parties have started from its iron-studded gate; and what jovial
monster feasts have taken place within its rooms. If walls could
speak, what a tale would Haddon have to tell.

The spring of the year of grace 1567 had just commenced, and the trees
were beginning to adorn themselves once again in their green array,
when the Knight of Haddon, Sir George Vernon, led out a merry company
for the first hawking expedition of the year. The winter had been
unusually long, and more than extraordinarily severe; and whilst the
knight and his sturdy friends had been enabled to pursue their sport
by submitting to a more than usual amount of inconvenience, yet the
ladies had been almost entirely confined within the limits of the
Hall. Winter at Haddon was by no means a dreary imprisonment, for
fetes and balls were continually taking place, and however rough the
weather might be, and the condition of the miserable tracts which in
those days did duty for roads, there were not a few cavaliers, both
old and young, who would gladly adventure the discomforts of a journey
to Haddon, even were it to be only rewarded by a smile, or perchance
a dance with the two daughters of the host, whose beauty, though of
different types, many were ready to swear, and to maintain it, if
need be, at the point of the sword, could not be surpassed in all the
counties of the land.

Indeed, the beauty of Margaret and Dorothy was almost as famous as
the reputation of the "King of the Peak" himself, and the old knight,
owner as he was of immense wealth, was often heard to assert that his
two daughters were the greatest treasures he possessed.

Many eyes were cast upon these two fair maidens, and many hearts were
laid at their feet. Margaret, the elder, was already being wooed by