The house at Trimmerstone had indeed been occupied by a man of rank, or, more properly speaking, by the housekeeper and a few old servants of a man of rank. Many summers had passed over its roof, and many storms had spent their fury on its weather-beaten sides, since any thing had been done to it in the way of repair. At the time that Mr. Martindale was speaking of it as a suitable residence for his honorable cousin, it was almost in a state of dilapidation. Philip had seen the house, and had some recollection of it; and our readers may easily judge of the young gentleman’s state of mind when the proposal was made to settle him there, and to exchange a splendid modern mansion for an out-of-the-way, ill-contrived, lumbering old mansion-house. Trimmerstone Hall was a long and almost indescribable building, which seemed as if it had stood till it half sunk into the earth. It was approached by a long, superannuated, everlasting avenue of trees, which had stood growing, no mortal could tell how long. There was such a density of foliage, that the middle part of the building was almost in total darkness; and whether the path between the trees was gravel, grass, or withered vegetation, it was not easy to ascertain. Two broad, dislocated stone steps sinking downwards between two stunted black brick walls, and surmounted by a grotesque wooden portico, admitted those who could stoop low enough to avoid hitting their heads, into a wide, broad, cold hall paved with marble, which nature had made black and white, but which time and other accidents had converted into brown and yellow. Immediately opposite to the front door, and not many yards from it, opened the back door, which in architectural beauty and convenience of arrangement was a fac-simile of its opposite neighbour. There were windows also in the entrance-hall, one on each side the two doors; and the windows were constructed upon that ingenious principle which admits any thing but light. On one side of this hall was a mighty fire-place, which looked as if it had never had a fire in it; and on the other was a broad staircase, with banisters strong enough to build a dozen Regent Street houses withal. There were rooms of divers dimensions and various degrees of deformity. To describe their arrangement is impossible, inasmuch as they had no arrangement. The state-apartments were hung with damask or with tapestry. Time had played sad tricks with these decorations, as it had also with the old oak floors, which had lost their shape and colour. No four-legged article of furniture could by any arguments be induced to stand steady on its legitimate supporters; and if a four-post bedstead had been placed on the higher side of a room, it must inevitably have rolled on its castors to the opposite side. The windows throughout the mansion were villainous; and the whole building seemed fit for nothing but to make a pencil-drawing, or an etching from it.