consisted of more than his two daughters, Mrs Llewellyn had been in the habit of letting these rooms to casual visitors to Usk who required a lodging for a few nights. Especially had they been at the service of Sir Archibald Bowmant during the shooting season, as he often had more bachelors staying at Usk Hall than he could accommodate, and knew he could trust their comfort with safety to his old tenant, Mrs Llewellyn. Sir Archibald’s woods skirted the road opposite Panty-cuckoo Farm, so that his guests had only to cross the park to gain their nightly lodgings, and so much trust had Mrs Llewellyn in her landlord’s visitors, that when her rooms were occupied she let the young gentlemen come and go as they liked, without holding any inquisitorial espionage over their proceedings. But this wing of the house had nothing to do with the farm itself; visitors to the Llewellyns drove straight down the precipitous drive till they turned round at the foot to face the front of the farm, which consisted of a low, rambling building, of dark red brick, with a thatched roof. Before it was a prim, old-fashioned strip of ground, guarded by a row of eight box trees, cut in the shape of peacocks. On the walls of the house were a magnificent magnolia, and some plants of the crimson pyrus japonica, which gave it a wonderfully warm appearance. As soon as carriage wheels were heard, Mrs Llewellyn usually opened the door and came down the bricked path to welcome her visitors. She would never hear of their leaving before they had partaken of her tea and cream. The parlour was entered immediately from the front door, and was wainscotted half-way to the ceiling with rich, dark oak, of which the ceiling itself was formed, divided into squares, with a plain but different device carved in each. The windows of this room were lattice-paned, and contained window-seats in the shape of oak settles, which opened like boxes to store the house linen. The fireplace was a mass of carving, without any mantelpiece, but a wide range below for logs, and iron dogs on either side to support them. Mrs Llewellyn much prided herself on this parlour. She knew the value and beauty of it as much as anybody, though she sometimes grumbled at its inconveniences, and said she would exchange it any day for a modern-built house. It opened into a wide, bricked passage, or ante-room, where the farmer hung his coats, and a table stood piled with the prayer-books of the family, ready to be distributed when church time came round again. Nell’s still lay amongst them. Her mother often sighed when she accidentally touched it; sometimes she had been seen to raise it furtively to her lips before she laid it down again. It was outside this ante-chamber that the two rooms had been added that were occasionally let as lodgings, and the door, which originally had opened from it to the garden, now led to them. Visitors passed through it to the dairy, where the shelves were piled with the year’s