Stained glass windows bearing the Ridgely coat of arms flank the front doorway, and likewise the opposing doorway at the end of the enormous hall upon which one enters, and the light from these windows gives the hall a subdued yet glowing illumination, so that there is something spectral about the old chairs and the old portraits with which the walls are solidly covered. There are portraits here by Gilbert Stuart and other distinguished painters of times gone by, and I particularly remember one large canvas showing a beautiful young woman in evening dress, her hair hanging in curls beside her cheeks, her tapering fingers touching the strings of a harp. She was young then; yet the portrait is that of the great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother, of present Ridgelys, and she has lain long in the brick-walled family burying ground below the garden. But there beneath the portrait stands the harp on which she played. One might tell endlessly of paneling, of the delicate carving of mantels and overmantels, of chairs, tables, desks, and sofas of Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Phyfe and Sheraton, yet giving such an inventory one might fail utterly to suggest the feeling of that great house, with its sense of homelike emptiness, its wealth of old furniture and portraits, blending together, in the dim light of a late October afternoon, to form shadowy backgrounds for autumnal reverie, or for silent, solitary listening--listening to the tales told by the soughing wind outside, to the whisper of embers in the fireplace, the slow somber tick of the tall clock telling of ages past and passing, the ghostly murmur of the old house talking softly to itself. From the windows of the great dining-room one looks away toward Hampton Gate, a favorite meeting place for the Elkridge Hunt, or, at another angle, toward the stables where the hunters are kept, the old slave cabins, and the overseer's house, with its bell tower--a house nearly two hundred years old. But the library is perhaps the more natural resting place for the guest, and it looks out over the garden, with its enormous descending terraces, its geometrical walks and steps, its beautiful old trees, and arbors of ancient box. Such terraces as these were never built by paid labor. We were given tea in the library, our hostess at this function being a young lady of five or six years--a granddaughter of Captain John Ridgely, present master of Hampton--who, with her pink cheeks, her serious eyes and demeanor, looked like a canvas by Sir Joshua come to life, as she sat in a large chair and ate a large red apple.