During the latter years of her life, however, she enjoyed that absolute retirement which was her heart's desire. But the peaceful mansion in which this wise and amiable woman passed her latter years was, after her decease, inhabited by one of those men who insulted public decency by the open and ostentatious profligacy of their lives. Mrs. Carter writing from the Castle Inn at Marlborough, which had not long before been one of the residences of the Seymour family, says, “this house I consider with great respect and veneration, not without a strong mixture of regret, that what was once the elegant abode of virtue and genius, and honoured by the conversation of the Duchess of Somerset and Mrs. Rowe, should now resound with all the disorderly and riotous clamour of an inn. And yet its fate is more eligible than that of Percy Lodge, as it stands the chance of receiving indifferently good and bad people, and is not destined to be the constant reception of shocking profligate vice.” CHAPTER CVIII. PERCY LODGE. THAXTED GRANGE. RAPIN THE JESUIT AND SIR THOMAS BROWNE. It seems that you take pleasure in these walks Sir. _Cleanthes_. Contemplative content I do, my Lord. They bring into my mind oft meditations So sweetly precious, that in the parting I find a shower of grace upon my cheeks, They take their leave so feelingly. MASSINGER. The difference was very great between Thaxted Grange and Percy Lodge, though somewhat less than that between Northumberland House and the Tobacconists at No. 113 Bishopsgate Street. Yet if a landscape painter who could have embodied the spirit of the scene had painted both, the Grange might have made the more attractive picture, though much had been done to embellish the Lodge by consulting picturesque effect, while the Allisons had aimed at little beyond comfort and convenience in their humble precincts.