I was now approaching Brandon Hall; less than ten minutes more would set
me down at its door-steps. The stiff figure of Mrs. Marston, the old
housekeeper, pale and austere, in rustling black silk (she was accounted
a miser, and estimated to have saved I dare not say how much money
in the Wylder family--kind to me with the bread-and-jam and
Naples-biscuit-kindness of her species, in old times)--stood in fancy at
the doorway. She, too, was a dream, and, I dare say, her money spent by
this time. And that other dream, to which she often led me, with the
large hazel eyes, and clear delicate tints--so sweet, so _riante_, yet so
sad; poor Lady Mary Brandon, dying there--so unhappily mated--a young
mother, and her baby sleeping in long 'Broderie Anglaise' attire upon the
pillow on the sofa, and whom she used to show me with a peeping mystery,
and her finger to her smiling lip, and a gaiety and fondness in her
pretty face. That little helpless, groping, wailing creature was now the
Dorcas Brandon, the mistress of the grand old mansion and all its
surroundings, who was the heroine of the splendid matrimonial compromise
which was about to reconcile a feud, and avert a possible lawsuit, and,
for one generation, at least, to tranquillise the troubled annals of the
Brandons and Wylders.

And now the ancient gray chapel, with its stained window, and store of
old Brandon and Wylder monuments among its solemn clump of elm-trees,
flitted by on my right; and in a moment more we drew up at the great gate
on the left; not a hundred yards removed from it, and with an eager
recognition, I gazed on the noble front of the old manorial house.

Up the broad straight avenue with its solemn files of gigantic timber
towering at the right and the left hand, the chaise rolled smoothly, and