Leaving then this room, we re-crossed the hall, and ascending the staircase at the lower end, entered the drawing-room, which is over the hall--a handsome room, and the best furnished in the house. The most interesting piece of furniture it contains, or perhaps, which the house itself contains, is a screen covered over with a great number of cuttings in black paper, done by a Mrs. Goodchild, and representing a great variety of family incidents and character--those little passing incidents in life, which, though rarely chronicled, are most influential on its fortunes--on which often its very destiny hangs. The receipt of a letter--the first meeting--the last parting--how much do these things involve! Here we were introduced to Mary Chaworth, the lovely and graceful maiden, full of hope, and life, and gaiety; with her friends and dependents about her; at the very time when Lord Byron became attached to her. Of the accuracy of this likeness we have no doubt, from the wonderful fidelity of some of the others, with whose persons we are acquainted. [Illustration] In one place she is represented as sitting in a room, her attitude one of terror. A man is before her presenting a pistol, and a little terrified page is concealing himself under a table. In another, she sits with her mother and a gentleman at tea; a foot-man behind waiting upon them. Again, she is in the gardens or grounds, walking with her cousin, Miss Radford; her rustic hat thrown back upon her shoulders; her beautiful head turned aside; and her hand put forth to receive a letter from a page, kneeling on one knee,--a letter from her lover and subsequent husband. Again, she is playing with a little child; and in all, her figure is full of exquisite grace and vivacity, and the profile of the face remarkably fine. It is impossible to say with what intense interest we examined these memorials of private life; these passages so full of vitality and character, incidental, but important--the very essence of an autobiography.