If Darcy felt the loss of the preceding night, it was far more from the necessity of avowing it to Gleeson than from the amount of the money, considerable as it was; and he, therefore, set out to call upon him, in a frame of mind far less at ease than he desired to persuade himself he enjoyed. Mr. Gleeson lived about three miles from Dublin, so that the Knight had abundant time to meditate as he went along, and think over the interview that awaited him. His revery was only broken by a sudden change from the high-road to the noiseless quiet of the neat avenue which led up to the house. Mr. Gleeson's abode had been an ancient manor-house in the Gwynne family, a building of such antiquity as to date from the time of the Knights Templars; and though once a favored residence of the Darcys, had, from the circumstances of a dreadful crime committed beneath its roof,--the murder of a servant by his master,--been at first deserted, and subsequently utterly neglected by the owners, so that at last it fell into ruin and decay. The roof was partly fallen in, the windows shattered and broken, the rich ceilings rotten and discolored with damp; it presented an aspect of desolation, when Mr. Gleeson proposed to take it on lease. Nor was the ruin only within doors, but without; the ornamental planting had been torn up, or used as firewood; the gardens pillaged and overrun with cattle; and the large trees--among which were some rare and remarkable ones--were lopped and torn by the country people, who trespassed and committed their depredations without fear or impediment. Now, however, the whole aspect was changed; the same spirit of order that exercised its happy influence in the management of distant properties had arrested the progress of destruction here, and, happily, in sufficient time to preserve some of the features which, in days past, had made this the most beautiful seat in the county. It was not without a feeling of astonishment that the Knight surveyed the change. An interval of twelve years--for such had been the length of time since he was last there--had worked magic in all around. Clumps had sprung up into ornamental groups, saplings become graceful trees, sickly evergreens that leaned their frail stems against a stake were now richly leaved hollies or fragrant laurustinas; and the marshy pond, that seemed stagnant with rank grass and duckweed, was a clear lake fed by a silvery cascade which descended in quaint but graceful terraces from the very end of the neat lawn. In Darcy's eyes, the only fault was the excessive neatness perceptible in everything; the very gravel seemed to shine with a peculiar lustre, the alleys were swept clean, not even a withered leaf was suffered to disfigure them, while the shrubs had an air of trim propriety, like the self-satisfied air of a Sunday citizen.