held in what is now the Department of the Eure and Arrondissement of Evreux. We now reach the celebrated episode of Dorothy Vernon, upon which the fate of Haddon hung and which has lent the glamour of romance to the scenes in which she moved. Sir George Vernon, her father, the last heir male of the Haddon line, was twice married, and his effigy now lies in Bakewell Church, with those of his two wives, Margaret, daughter of Sir Gilbert Tayleboys, and Maude, daughter of Sir Ralph Langford. Of his two daughters, Margaret, the elder, was married to Sir Thomas Stanley of Winwick, in Lancashire, son of the third Earl of Derby; and Dorothy, the younger--who ultimately became sole heiress--to John Manners, the second son of Sir Thomas Manners, first Earl of Rutland. It is not easy to say at this date what could have been the strong objection which the “King of the Peak” is averred to have had to his daughter’s marriage with John Manners, whose father was of high descent, and died, covered with honours, in 1543, having had a royal augmentation granted to his arms, by reason of his descent from Anne Plantagenet, sister of Edward IV. It may, indeed, be that Sir George had planned some great alliance for his daughter, and was ill content with a younger son, or perhaps differences of religion were at the root of his objection, or, we may suppose again, that some personal antipathy, of which there is no record, was felt by the knight to his daughter’s lover. However this may be, tradition tells us that the attachment was a secret one, or, at least, that the meeting of Manners and Dorothy Vernon was under her father’s ban. Legend has grown up about the episodes, and it is related that Manners lingered in the woods of Haddon disguised as a forester or a hunter, gaining speech at times with the lady, and watching the light in her window. As to the actual circumstances of the elopement--if elopement there was, which seems probable--we have tradition alone to guide us. It is said that, on the occasion of certain festivities at the Hall--held, as some aver, in honour of the marriage of her elder sister--Dorothy stole away from the gay scene, ran down to the terrace by the steps from the anteroom which now bear her name, and joined her lover, who had horses waiting near. The pair then mounted, and galloped, as the story goes, all through the night, until they reached Aylston, in Leicestershire, where they were married on the morrow. The memory of Dorothy Vernon will linger long about the tapestried chambers and sweet-scented gardens of Haddon, and whatever there may be of truth or falsehood in the story of her elopement, the visitor who passes down the steps and walks beneath the low-hanging boughs of the yew-trees on the terrace, or is shadowed by the limes and sycamores in Dorothy Vernon’s Walk, where the banks are carpeted with flowers in the spring-time, will do well to cherish this legendary history, which has given an unfailing charm to Haddon.