"And the conservatories are half as big as the house; he is fond of flowers too. Just now they are full of delicious things--cyclamens, and orchids, and primulas, and begonias, and heaths of all sorts, and azaleas, and I don't know what. There are quantities of flowers in the garden too, so early as it is. The great bushes--almost trees--of camellias are simply wonderful; and there is a bed of double hyacinths under my window of all the colours of the rainbow. "Then there is a fernery--part of it roofed in, and part running down through the shrubberies on one side. The tree ferns make a matted roof overhead, and other ferns grow between like bushes, and little ferns sprout everywhere underneath amongst stones and things. There are winding paths in and out through it, where it is quite dark at mid-day; and there are little rills and waterfalls trickling there in all directions, carried down in pipes from a dam up amongst the hills behind the house. "Don't you think _we_ might have a fern-tree gully? If the water could be got for it, it would run down the side of a terraced garden even better than it does here, where the ground falls very slightly. If you like I will ask Mr. Thornley how he made his, and all about it; he is always delighted if he can give any information. He is such an excessively kind man. I like him _so_ much. How long is it since you saw him? When he was a bachelor, I think you said you stayed at Adelonga. That must have been a long time ago, for his eldest daughter (just now finishing her education in Germany) is older than I am. There is a painting of him in the dining-room as a young man, and one of his first wife. His is not the least like what he is now. But I will tell you what might _really_ be his portrait--Long's old inquisitor in the 'Dancing Girl' picture--I mean that genial old fellow in the arm-chair, who leans his arms on the table and grasps (I am sure without knowing what he is doing) the base of the crucifix, while he enjoys the sight of that pretty creature dancing. If you go and look at him the next time you find yourself near the picture gallery, you will see Mr. Thornley's very image. He is the soul of hospitality; he is so courteous to everybody in the house--even to his children; he is one of the nicest and kindest men I ever met. "But I have not said a word about my cousin Lucilla, or the baby, or the other children. The baby is a little _duck_. I am allowed to have him a good deal, because the nurse says I am much 'handier' than most young ladies; and I certainly _have_ the knack of making him stop crying and of soothing him off to sleep.