"the old wing" precisely as we had previously
treated the Elizabethan bedrooms. Once more,
the housekeeper said, "I am quite of your
opinion, miss;" and once more she looked at
me, with undisguised admiration of my extraordinary
common sense.

We went, next, to the wing on the right
which was built, by way of completing the
wonderful architectural jumble at Blackwater Park,
in the time of George the Second. This is the
habitable part of the house, which has been
repaired and redecorated, inside, on Laura's
account. My two rooms, and all the good
bedrooms besides, are on the first floor; and the
basement contains a drawing-room, a dining-
room, a morning-room, a library, and a pretty
little boudoir for Laura—all very nicely
ornamented in the bright modern way, and all very
elegantly furnished with the delightful modern
luxuries. None of the rooms are anything like
so large and airy as our rooms at Limmeridge;
but they all look pleasant to live in. I was
terribly afraid, from what I had heard of
Blackwater Park, of fatiguing antique chairs, and
dismal stained glass, and musty, frouzy hangings,
and all the barbarous lumber which people born
without a sense of comfort accumulate about
them, in defiance of all consideration due to the
convenience of their friends. It is an inexpressible
relief to find that the nineteenth century has
invaded this strange future home of mine, and
has swept the dirty "good old times" out of the
way of our daily life.

I dawdled away the morning—part of the
time in the rooms down stairs; and part, out of
doors, in the great square which is formed by the
three sides of the house, and by the lofty iron
railings and gates which protect it in front. A
large circular fishpond, with stone sides and an
allegorical leaden monster in the middle,
occupies the centre of the square. The pond itself
is full of gold and silver fish, and is encircled by
a broad belt of the softest turf I ever walked on.
I loitered here, on the shady side, pleasantly
enough, till luncheon time; and, after that, took
my broad straw hat, and wandered out alone, in
the warm lovely sunlight, to explore the grounds.

Daylight confirmed the impression which I
had felt the night before, of there being too
many trees at Blackwater. The house is stifled
by them. They are, for the most part, young,
and planted far too thickly. I suspect there
must have been a ruinous cutting down of
timber, all over the estate, before Sir Percival's
time, and an angry anxiety, on the part of the
next possessor, to fill up all the gaps as thickly
and rapidly as possible. After looking about
me, in front of the house, I observed a flower-
garden on my left hand, and walked towards it,
to see what I could discover in that direction.

On a nearer view, the garden proved to be
small and poor and ill-kept. I left it behind
me, opened a little gate in a ring fence, and
found myself in a plantation of fir-trees. A
pretty, winding path, artificially made, led me
on among the trees; and my north-country
experience soon informed me that I was approaching
sandy, heathy ground. After a walk of
more than half a mile, I should think, among
the firs, the path took a sharp turn; the trees
abruptly ceased to appear on either side of me;
and I found myself standing suddenly on the
margin of a vast open space; and looking down
at the Blackwater lake from which the house
takes its name.

The ground, shelving away below me, was all
sand, with a few little heathy hillocks to break
the monotony of it in certain places. The lake
itself had evidently once flowed to the spot on
which I stood, and had been gradually wasted
and dried up to less than a third of its former
size. I saw its still, stagnant waters, a quarter
of a mile away from me in the hollow, separated
into pools and ponds, by twining reeds and
rushes, and little knolls of earth. On the
farther bank from me, the trees rose thickly
again, and shut out the view, and cast their
black shadows on the sluggish, shallow water.
As I walked down to the lake, I saw that the
ground on its farther side was damp and
marshy, overgrown with rank grass and dismal
willows. The water, which was clear enough
on the open sandy side, where the sun
shone, looked black and poisonous opposite
to me, where it lay deeper under the shade
of the spongy banks and the rank overhanging
thickets and tangled trees. The frogs were
croaking, and the rats were slipping in and out
of the shadowy water, like live shadows
themselves, as I got nearer to the marshy side of the
lake. I saw here, lying half in and half out of
the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned
boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering
through a gap in the trees on its dry surface,
and a snake basking in the midst of the spot,
fantastically coiled, and treacherously still. Far
and near, the view suggested the same dreary
impressions of solitude and decay; and the
glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead,
seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom
and barrenness of the wilderness on which it
shone. I turned and retraced my steps to the
high, heathy ground; directing them a little
aside from my former path, towards a shabby
old wooden shed, which stood on the outer skirt
of the fir plantation, and which had hitherto
been too unimportant to share my notice with
the wide, wild prospect of the lake.

On approaching the shed, I found that it had
once been a boat-house, and that an attempt had
apparently been made to convert it afterwards
into a sort of rude arbour, by placing inside it
a firwood seat, a few stools, and a table. I
entered the place, and sat down for a little while,
to rest and get my breath again.

I had not been in the boat-house more than a
minute, when it struck me that the sound of
my own quick breathing was very strangely
echoed by something beneath me. I listened
intently for a moment, and heard a low, thick,
sobbing breath that seemed to come from the
ground under the seat which I was occupying,
My nerves are not easily shaken by trifles; but,
on this occasion, I started to my feet in a fright