_Silvia Doria_


Beyond the blue hills, within riding distance, there is a
country of parks and beeches, with views of the far-off sea. I
remember in one of my rides coming on the place which was the
scene of the pretty, old-fashioned story of Silvia Doria.
Through the gates, with fine gate-posts, on which heraldic
beasts, fierce and fastidious, were upholding coroneted shields,
I could see, at the end of the avenue, the facade of the House,
with its stone pilasters, and its balustrade on the steep roof.

More than one hundred years ago, in that Park, with its
Italianized house, and level gardens adorned with statues and
garden temples, there lived, they say, an old Lord with his two
handsome sons. The old Lord had never ceased mourning for his
Lady, though she had died a good many years before; there were
no neighbours he visited, and few strangers came inside the
great Park walls. One day in Spring, however, just when the
apple trees had burst into blossom, the gilded gates were thrown
open, and a London chariot with prancing horses drove up the
Avenue. And in the chariot, smiling and gay, and indeed very
beautiful in her dress of yellow silk, and her great Spanish hat
with drooping feathers, sat Silvia Doria, come on a visit to her
cousin, the old Lord.

It was her father who had sent her--that he might be more free,