"You mustn’t sleep now, papa," she said, blushing a little over her bad pronunciation, "for you said we were going to walk over to the Place this afternoon." "So I did; and we will start presently." CHAPTER VII. BALNACLUITH PLACE. "It often surprises me," said Mr. Anerley, as the little party made its way across the common of St. Mary-Kirby in the warm evening glow, "that Hubbard cares to keep up acquaintance with us. We always dislike people who have known us in ill-fortune, or penury, or great depression. I even hate the flavour of cigars that I have smoked when recovering from sickness; I must have others when I get quite well again. Now, Hubbard, with his deer-park, and harriers, and thirty thousand a year, ought to be disgusted with people who knew him as a tea-broker." "Don’t be so ill-natured about Mr. Hubbard, dear," said his wife, with a smile. "I’m sure he is a big, soft, stupid, well-meaning sort of man." Mr. Anerley was not quite so certain about the softness and good intentions of the Count; but he charitably forbore to speak. Dove and Will, who had stood for a few seconds on the bridge, to watch the two swans come sailing towards them in expectation of crumbs—cleaving the burnished gold of the mill-head into long purple lines—now came up; and they walked away from the still little village, along the green lanes, until they drew near the Place. It was a great, sombre, fine old building, which had figured in history under another name—a large building of gloomy red brick, with innumerable mullioned windows, and peaks, and stone griffins—a building that had here and there grown grey and orange with the lichens and rain and wind of many years. It stood upon a high terrace on the side of a hill sloping down to the river, which ran along the valley to St. Mary-Kirby; and at this point the stream—a line of flashing gold winding through the soft green—divided the terrace and lawn of the house from the great park opposite, with its magnificent elms and its small close-lying herd of deer. Round about the Place, too, were some fine trees, on a particular cluster of which a colony of rooks had established themselves at some bygone time. Altogether a noble and handsome old building was this Balnacluith Place, for which the Graf von Schönstein had—not without a purpose—expended a large sum of money, on his accession to fortune. Alas! the influence of the Place had fled the moment he bought it. The brilliant gentlemen and lovely ladies whom the Count had pictured to himself dining in the great hall, or walking in the broad park, never appeared. The grand old house had lost its mesmeric power; and no longer drew down from London those brilliant parties of wits, and beaux, and belles who once—as the Count had informed himself—held their merry revels there. He had sparkling wines at his command; lights he could have in abundance; when he chose, the