The old church was at one end of the village, with a squat stone spire on a squat tower. Description of its interior was reserved until later. The Vicarage was beyond it, round the corner. The principal lodge gates were opposite,—handsome iron gates between heavy stone pillars surmounted by the Brent armorial leopards, collared and chained. A little Tudor lodge stood on either side of the gate-pillars, and a high stone wall ran off on either side. Young Sir Harry had told him that it ran right round the park, which was three miles in circumference. The description of the drive broke off here for an account of some other things that young Sir Harry had told him. Expectation was to be maintained a little longer. She wanted to get to the Castle, but did not skip this part because it was rather interesting. "The boy has never been to school. In fact, he has never slept a night away from the Castle in all his sixteen years. He has a tutor—a Mr. Wilbraham, who seems to have grounded him well in his classics. More of him anon. The boy reads poetry too, and of a good kind. Altogether rather a remarkable boy, and very good to look upon, with his crisp fair hair, white teeth and friendly open look—a worthy head of the old family from which he is descended. His father was killed in the South African War, before Harry was born. He was born at the Castle and he and his mother have lived here ever since. So much I learnt as we drove together, and formed some picture in my mind of the people I was about to meet." Here followed the mental portraits of Lady Brent, Mrs. Brent and Mr. Wilbraham, but as they bore small likeness to the originals, as afterwards appeared, they may be omitted. "We entered by the lodge gates, and drove through the beautiful park, I should say for the best part of a mile. With the trees not yet in leaf, and the great stretches of fern showing nothing but the russet of last year’s fronds, it was yet very beautiful. Herds of fallow deer were feeding quietly on the green lawns, and a noble stag lifted his head to look at us as we drove past, but made no attempt to escape, though he can have been distant from us only a long mashie shot. Wood-pigeons flew from tree-top to tree-top across the glades. I heard the tap-tap of a woodpecker as we began to mount a rise where the trees grew thicker, and the harsh screech of a jay, of which I caught a glimpse of garish colour. There was a sense of peace and seclusion about this beautiful enclosed space, as if nothing ugly from the world outside could penetrate behind those high stone walls, and nature here rejoiced in freedom and beauty.