'What a picture you have drawn! I should commit suicide if I lived
there.'

'Not if you had so much to do as I have.'

'And what is the house like?'

'The house is good enough an old-fashioned manor-house, with high brick
chimneys, and brick gables, tiled all over, and large square windows
set in stone. The house is good enough, only it stands in the middle of
a farm-yard. I said there were no trees, but there is an avenue.'

'Come, that is something.'

'It was an old family seat, and they used to have avenues in those
days; but it doesn't lead up to the present hail door. It comes
sideways up to the farm. yard; so that the whole thing must have been
different once, and there must have been a great court-yard. In
Elizabeth's time Plaistow Manor was rather a swell place, and belonged
to some Roman Catholics who came to grief, and then the Howards got it.
There's a whole history about it, only I don't care much about those
things.'

'And is it yours now?'

'It's between me and my uncle, and I pay him rent for his part. He's a
clergyman you know, and he has a living in Lincolnshire not far off.'

'And do you live alone in that big house?'