‘True,’ said the old lady; ‘and as our reverend friend Dr. Bosky observes, to maintain the contrary would be to sanction a principle utterly subversive of all social order and aristocratical privilege.’ The carriage now rolled over the narrow ledge which connected the site of the castle with the neighbouring rocks. A furious peal at the outer bell brought forth a venerable porter, who opened the gates with becoming gravity, and the carriage entered a spacious court, of much more recent architecture than the exterior of the castle, and built in a style of modern Gothic, that seemed to form a happy medium between the days of feudality, commonly called the dark ages, and the nineteenth century, commonly called the enlightened age: _why_ I could never discover. The inner gates were opened by another grave and venerable domestic, who, with all the imperturbable decorum and formality of the old school, assisted the ladies to alight, and ushered them along an elegant colonnade into the library, which we shall describe no further than by saying that the apartment was Gothic, and the furniture Grecian: whether this be an unpardonable incongruity calculated to disarrange all legitimate associations, or a judicious combination of solemnity and elegance, most happily adapted to the purposes of study, we must leave to the decision, or rather discussion, of picturesque and antiquarian disputants. The windows, which were of stained glass, were partly open to a shrubbery, which admitting the meditative mind into the recesses of nature, and excluding all view of distant scenes, heightened the deep seclusion and repose of the apartment. It consisted principally of evergreens; but the parting beauty of the last flowers of autumn, and the lighter and now fading tints of a few deciduous shrubs, mingled with the imperishable verdure of the cedar and the laurel. The old domestic went in search of his young mistress, and the ladies threw themselves on a sofa in graceful attitudes. They were shortly joined by Anthelia, who welcomed them to Melincourt with all the politeness which the necessity of the case imposed.