It is with some such thoughts as these that I stand at the entrance to the green, with last year's weedy aftermath still dank and tangled with wind and rain. The queer little one-storied dark-red houses of the quadrangle bear a melancholy resemblance to a set of dilapidated {47} and discarded toys, the box for which has been lost. They are built, too, on a kind of foreign-toy pattern, with queer outside staircases, leading to street-doors under a portico, which is the only entrance to the upper storey, the lower doors in the quadrangle communicating only with the ground-floor. The crunch of my footsteps along the moist path, gives no echo; the place seems to be too dull and lifeless even for that kind of response. The left wing and far the greater portion of the centre block are still with the silence of desertion. Peering through the dim leaden casements, I see only small, bare, empty rooms. There is a sense of mildew and of damp plaster peeling from the walls,—of leaky water-pipes, and a humid chill, which no glowing hearth nor bright July weather could utterly subdue. Such is the feeling with which the whole place strikes me on this leaden wintry day, when the vapour from the engine on the railway trails slowly upward to meet the ragged edge of the dun cloud that streams slowly downward; when a big, black dog crouches on the threshold of the village chandler's shop, to get out of the drizzle; and the butcher, who has sold out, closes his half-hatch, with the certainty that he may take his afternoon nap by the fire, undisturbed by customers.