drifted into the back hall, and lay there in heaps when the weather was
severe), but to summon some one to receive their message, or carry their
request to be allowed to speak to my lady. I remember it was long before
Mr. Gray could be made to understand that the great door was only open on
state occasions, and even to the last he would as soon come in by that as
the terrace entrance. I had been received there on my first setting foot
over my lady's threshold; every stranger was led in by that way the first
time they came; but after that (with the exceptions I have named) they
went round by the terrace, as it were by instinct. It was an assistance
to this instinct to be aware that from time immemorial, the magnificent
and fierce Hanbury wolf-hounds, which were extinct in every other part of
the island, had been and still were kept chained in the front quadrangle,
where they bayed through a great part of the day and night and were
always ready with their deep, savage growl at the sight of every person
and thing, excepting the man who fed them, my lady's carriage and four,
and my lady herself. It was pretty to see her small figure go up to the
great, crouching brutes thumping the flags with their heavy, wagging
tails, and slobbering in an ecstacy of delight, at her light approach and
soft caress. She had no fear of them; but she was a Hanbury born, and
the tale went, that they and their kind knew all Hanburys instantly, and
acknowledged their supremacy, ever since the ancestors of the breed had
been brought from the East by the great Sir Urian Hanbury, who lay with
his legs crossed on the altar-tomb in the church. Moreover, it was
reported that, not fifty years before, one of these dogs had eaten up a
child, which had inadvertently strayed within reach of its chain. So you
may imagine how most people preferred the terrace-door. Mr. Gray did not
seem to care for the dogs. It might be absence of mind, for I have heard
of his starting away from their sudden spring when he had unwittingly
walked within reach of their chains: but it could hardly have been
absence of mind, when one day he went right up to one of them, and patted