charming view of the southern front of the hall. [Illustration: THE TERRACE, HADDON HALL.] More romance hangs about Haddon than probably any other old baronial hall in England, and it has therefore been for years an endless source of inspiration for poets, artists, and novelists. Mrs. Radcliffe here laid some of the scenes of the _Mysteries of Udolpho_. Bennett's "King of the Peak" was Sir George Vernon, the hospitable owner of Haddon. Scott has written of it, a host of artists have painted its most attractive features, and many a poet has sung of the "Hall of wassail which has rung To the unquestioned baron's jest: Dim old chapel, where were hung Offerings of the o'erfraught breast; Moss-clad terrace, strangely still, Broken shaft and crumbling frieze---- Still as lips that used to fill With bugle-blasts the morning breeze." But, unlike most baronial strongholds, the history of Haddon tells only the romance of peace, love, and hospitality. It came by marriage into the possession of the Vernons soon after the Conquest; one of them, Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon, was appointed governor of Prince Arthur by Henry VII. His grandson, Sir George Vernon, lived in such princely magnificence at Haddon that he was known as the "King of the Peak;" his initials, "G. V.," are carved in the banquet-hall. Around his youngest daughter, Dorothy, gathers the chief halo of romance. The story in brief is, that her elder sister, being the affianced bride of the son of the Earl of Derby, was petted and made much of, while Dorothy, at sweet sixteen, was kept in the background. She formed an attachment for John Manners, son of the Earl of Rutland, but this her family violently opposed, keeping her almost a prisoner: her lover, disguised as a forester, lurked for weeks in the woods around Haddon, obtaining occasionally a stolen interview. At length on a festal night, when the ball-room was filled with guests summoned to celebrate the approaching nuptials of the elder sister, and every one was so wrapped up in enjoyment that there was no time to watch Dorothy, the maiden, unobserved, stole out of the ball-room into the anteroom, and through the door, across the garden, and up the steps to the terrace, where her lover had made a signal that he was waiting. In a moment she was in his arms, and rode away with him in the moonlight all night, across the hills of Derbyshire, and into Leicestershire, where they were married next morning. It was the old story--an elopement, a grand row, and then all was forgiven. Sir George Vernon had no sons, and his daughters divided his estate, Haddon going to Dorothy, who thus by her elopement carried the famous hall over to the family of Manners. Dorothy died in 1584, leaving four children, the oldest, Sir George Manners, living at Haddon and maintaining its hospitable reputation. Dying in 1679, his son John Manners, who was the ninth Earl of Rutland, became the master of