built at a time in which landowners were very much less jealous than
they are now of such encroachments from their humbler neighbours.

The park itself was large, and the appendages to it such as were fit
for an Earl's establishment;--but there was little about it that was
attractive. The land lay flat, and the timber, which was very plentiful,
had not been made to group itself in picturesque forms. There was the
Manor wood, containing some five hundred acres, lying beyond the church
and far back from the road, intersected with so-called drives, which
were unfit for any wheels but those of timber waggons;--and round the
whole park there was a broad belt of trees. Here and there about the
large enclosed spaces there stood solitary oaks, in which the old Earl
took pride; but at Scroope Manor there was none of that finished
landscape beauty of which the owners of "places" in England are so
justly proud.

The house was large, and the rooms were grand and spacious. There was an
enormous hall into one corner of which the front door opened. There was
a vast library filled with old books which no one ever touched,--huge
volumes of antiquated and now all but useless theology, and folio
editions of the least known classics,--such as men now never read. Not a
book had been added to it since the commencement of the century, and it
may almost be said that no book had been drawn from its shelves for real
use during the same period. There was a suite of rooms,--a salon with
two withdrawing rooms which now were never opened. The big dining-room
was used occasionally, as, in accordance with the traditions of the
family, dinner was served there whenever there were guests at the Manor.
Guests, indeed, at Scroope Manor were not very frequent;--but Lady
Scroope did occasionally have a friend or two to stay with her; and
at long intervals the country clergymen and neighbouring squires were