"I rather like this old family mansion," cried Vibert, glancing up at the building, which had been constructed of dark red brick, with handsome facings of stone. "There is something stately about it, as if it had seen better days, and remembered them still. Myst Court looks something like William and Mary's part of Hampton Court Palace." "Oh, a mere miniature of that grand old building," said Emmie. "I can just fancy the kind of people who walked on this terrace when first it was laid out," continued Vibert. "There were gentlemen in huge, full-bottomed wigs, long coats, embroidered waistcoats and ruffles of old point-lace, with rapiers hanging at their sides. There were ladies like those whom Sir Godfrey Kneller painted, stiff and stately, each smelling a rose which she held in her hand; ladies in hoops, who looked as if they could never dance anything more lively than a _minuet de la cour_. We seem too modern, Emmie, to match our mansion. Let's return to the olden times, forget that Queen Anne is dead, and fancy her yet with the sharp-tongued Duchess Sarah playing the game of romantic friendship. Let's imagine ourselves as we would have appeared some hundred and fifty years ago. I'm a young Tory gallant (of course, I'm a Jacobite at heart, and drink to 'the king over the water'); Bruce is a decided Whig,--I'm not sure that he is not a Dutchman, and has come over from Holland in the train of the Prince of Orange." Emmie laughed at Vibert's playful fancies, and wondered how her handsome young brother would have looked in a full-bottomed wig. "Whig and Tory must unite," she observed, "to get that garden into order. The walks are overrun with shepherd's purse and chickweed, and the beds seem to grow little but nettles." "But these beds were clearly laid out at the time when Dutch taste prevailed," said Vibert; "it reminds one of the poet's description,-- 'Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother, One half the garden just reflects the other.'" "Rather a mournful reflection now," observed Emmie with a smile. "But easily changed to a bright one!" cried Vibert; "we'll set plenty of hands to work, and get everything right before spring. These old straggling bushes must come up; we'll have new plants from a nursery-garden, and fill those beds with geraniums, fuchsias, and calceolaria. An orangery, as at Hampton Court, shall be at one end of the house; and we must fix on a site for a conservatory, in which some huge vine shall spread out its branches, heavy with delicious bunches of grapes." "My dear boy, you speak as if papa had the purse of Fortunatus," said Emmie. "You know that he will have all kinds of expense in getting the property into tolerable order,--draining, and that sort of thing. The garden must wait for new plants, and we for conservatory and orangery, till more important matters are settled. Think of the cottages out of repair--"