CHAPTER III.



LOUIS LE DEBONNAIRE.



I walked by his garden and saw the wild brier,
The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher.
ISC WATTS.


Ormersfield Park was extensive, ranging into fine broken ground,
rocky and overgrown with brushwood; but it bore the marks of
retrenchment; there was hardly a large timber tree on the estate,
enclosures had been begun and deserted, and the deer had been sold
off to make room for farmers' cattle, which grazed up to the very
front door.

The house was of the stately era of Anne, with a heavy portico and
clumsy pediment on the garden side, all the windows of the suite of
rooms opening on a broad stone terrace, whence steps descended to the
lawn, neatly kept, but sombre, for want of openings in the
surrounding evergreens.

It was early March, and a lady wrapped in a shawl was seated on the
terrace, enjoying the mild gleam of spring, and the freshness of the