asked, with their wives, to dinner. When the Earl and his Countess were
alone they used a small breakfast parlour, and between this and the big
dining-room there was the little chamber in which the Countess usually
lived. The Earl's own room was at the back, or if the reader pleases,
front of the house, near the door leading into the street, and was, of
all rooms in the house, the gloomiest.

The atmosphere of the whole place was gloomy. There were none of those
charms of modern creation which now make the mansions of the wealthy
among us bright and joyous. There was not a billiard table in the
house. There was no conservatory nearer than the large old-fashioned
greenhouse, which stood away by the kitchen garden and which seemed to
belong exclusively to the gardener. The papers on the walls were dark
and sombre. The mirrors were small and lustreless. The carpets were old
and dingy. The windows did not open on to the terrace. The furniture was
hardly ancient, but yet antiquated and uncomfortable. Throughout the
house, and indeed throughout the estate, there was sufficient evidence
of wealth; and there certainly was no evidence of parsimony; but at
Scroope Manor money seemed never to have produced luxury. The household
was very large. There was a butler, and a housekeeper, and various
footmen, and a cook with large wages, and maidens in tribes to wait upon
each other, and a colony of gardeners, and a coachman, and a head-groom,
and under-grooms. All these lived well under the old Earl, and knew the
value of their privileges. There was much to get, and almost nothing
to do. A servant might live for ever at Scroope Manor,--if only
sufficiently submissive to Mrs. Bunce the housekeeper. There was
certainly no parsimony at the Manor, but the luxurious living of the
household was confined to the servants' department.

To a stranger, and perhaps also to the inmates, the idea of gloom about