I have a habit of growing attached to places, independently of the persons connected with them. Thus, I cannot imagine any time when it would not be an enjoyment to drive up to the hall-door of the Cedars, sweeping round in the wide curve that Colin is so proud of making his carriage-wheels describe: to look back up the familiar hill-side, where the winter sun is shining on that slope of trees,---then run into the house, through the billiard-room, and out again by the dining-room windows, on to the broad terrace. There, if there is any sunshine, you will be sure to get it,--any wind, it will blow in your face; any bit of colour or landscape beauty, you will catch it on this green lawn; the grand old cedars--the distant fir-woods, lying in a still mass of dark blue shadow, or standing up, one by one, cut out sharply against the brilliant west. Whether it is any meteorological peculiarity I know not; but it seems to me as if, whatever the day has been, there is always a fair sunset at the Cedars. I love the place. If I went away for years--if I never saw it again--I should always love it and remember it. Mrs. Granton too, for she seems an integral part of the picture. Her small, elderly figure, trotting in and out of the rooms; her clear loud voice--she is a little deaf--along the upstairs passages; her perpetual activity--I think she is never quiet but when she is asleep. Above all, her unvarying goodness and cheerfulness--truly the Cedars would not be the Cedars without my dear old lady! I don't think she ever knew how fond I was of her, even as a little girl. Nobody could help it; never anybody had to do with Mrs. Granton without becoming fond of her. She is almost the only person living of whom I never heard anyone speak an unkind word; because she herself never speaks an ill word of any human being. Every one she knows, is "the kindest creature," "the nicest creature," "the cleverest creature" --I do believe if you presented to her Diabolus himself, she would only call him "poor creature;" would suggest that his temper must have aggravated by the unpleasant place he had to live in, and set about some plan for improving his complexion, and concealing his horns and tail. At dinner, I took my favourite seat, where, seen through this greatest of the three windows,--a cedar with its "broad, green layers of shade," is intersected by a beech--still faintly yellow--as I have seen it, autumn after autumn, from the same spot. It seemed just like old times. I felt happy; as if something pleasant were about to happen, and said as much. Mrs. Granton looked delighted. "I am sure, my dear, I hope so. And I trust we shall see you here very often indeed. Only think, you have never been since the night of the ball. What a deal has happened between then and now." I had already been thinking the same.