existed in many a living person’s memory. There was something pathetic in the forlorn look of the whole, particularly of this abandoned bit of City garden, with its broad flight of riveted Purbeck flag steps and old iron handrails approaching it. Lofty, comfortable, highly respectable, and in its true sense ‘snug’ is the dining-room on the first floor, with its many ingeniously-contrived cupboards and good woodwork. The outside displayed the sad-coloured tint of old and grimed brick.” Coming by a day or two later, I found the hoardings already up, and the “breakers” at their work. Turning out of High Street, Kensington, close by the station, and descending “Wright’s Lane” for a hundred yards or so, we find ourselves before another of these surviving old mansions--Scarsdale House. There is the venerable brick wall running along the road and enclosing a garden as old, while the mansion, with its tiled roof, turns its shoulder to the road and looks toward its fair garden. A pleasing gateway, with piers surmounted by well-carved vases of graceful pattern. Entering we find ourselves in a spacious garden of the old Manor House pattern, a broad walk, with piers halfway down--remains, probably, of a terrace--and at the bottom a sort of ruined pavilion or summer-house; steps lead down from the old doorway into the garden, and the house, with its tiled roof and dormer windows, forms a pleasing background. There is a pleasant air of repose and abandonment over all, and no one would suppose he was in the heart of a busy quarter of London. Within we find all in keeping. The spacious reception and drawing-rooms are long and lofty, and “walled” with old panelling, heavily moulded, which have not been disfigured with paint or even varnish. The staircase is in short flights, with broad landings, and has fine substantial balusters of oak, with richly-twisted rails. The doorways are black as ebony, and carved elaborately; and an entrance to one of the bedrooms is deeply embayed, and offers an effective union of arched and square doorway combined, supported on carved pillars. There is an abundance of recesses and shadowy places, and the whole has quite a picturesque air. Long may Scarsdale House be spared! though railway companies and speculative builders have the valuable ground in their eyes, and would be glad--the latter, at least--to erect a showy Scarsdale Terrace, or Mansions, “suitable for noblemen, gentlemen, Members of Parliament, or bachelors of position.”