"Mr. Margrave,--a visitor at L----, and he has been a great traveller, as
he says; perhaps he met Sir Philip abroad."

"I must go and hear what he said to Mrs. Gates; excuse me, sir, but I am
so anxious about Sir Philip."

"If it be not too great a favour, may I be allowed the same privilege
granted to Mr. Margrave? To judge by the outside of the house, the inside
must be worth seeing; still, if it be against Sir Philip's positive
orders--"

"His orders were, not to let the Court become a show-house,--to admit none
without my consent; but I should be ungrateful indeed, doctor, if I
refused that consent to you."

I tied my horse to the rusty gate of the terrace-walk, and followed the
steward up the broad stairs of the terrace. The great doors were
unlocked. We entered a lofty hall with a domed ceiling; at the back of
the hall the grand staircase ascended by a double flight. The design was
undoubtedly Vanbrugh's,--an architect who, beyond all others, sought the
effect of grandeur less in space than in proportion; but Vanbrugh's
designs need the relief of costume and movement, and the forms of a more
pompous generation, in the bravery of velvets and laces, glancing amid
those gilded columns, or descending with stately tread those broad
palatial stairs. His halls and chambers are so made for festival and
throng, that they become like deserted theatres, inexpressibly desolate,
as we miss the glitter of the lamps and the movement of the actors.

The housekeeper had now appeared,--a quiet, timid old woman. She excused
herself for admitting Margrave--not very intelligibly. It was plain to