XVIII.--RETURNS TO THE MEETING AT THE LONDON TAVERN 199 XIX.--OF CERTAIN REPORTS IN THE NEWSPAPERS 210 XX.--SHOWS HOW THE PURSE FOUND ITS WAY INTO PAUL SOMERTON’S BOX 224 XXI.--WHEREIN THOMAS DIBBLE “RUNS AWAY,” AND MEETS WITH A VERY REMARKABLE COMPANION 236 XXII.--IN WHICH THOMAS DIBBLE CONTINUES TO “RUN AWAY” 246 XXIII.--IS OF A MISCELLANEOUS AND DISCURSIVE CHARACTER, BUT ESSENTIAL TO THE NARRATIVE 261 XXIV.--CHRISTABEL TAKES DIBBLE INTO HER CONFIDENCE 278 CHAPTER I. IN THE SHADOW OF BERNE HILLS. Barton Hall is a conspicuous feature of the landscape in the smiling Vale of Avonworth, and it stands beneath the shadow of Berne Hills. Built of white stone, and in the Italian style of architecture, it has the appearance of a modern mansion removed from Kensington Palace Gardens, and planted amongst the rare scenery of this beautiful western district of the Midlands. All that wealth and taste can do to make the house generally worthy of the site has been lavished upon it, inside and out. It is furnished with everything that is costly and comfortable, with ornaments and articles of _vertu_ from all parts of the earth. A long gravelly drive leads up to the principal entrance, which is cut off from the park with iron fencing and chains. On the other side of the house there are conservatories of flowers and extensive gardens. Behind, at a short distance, there is stabling for many horses, shut out from view by shrubs and young trees. In front of the house a smooth tract of mossy lawn ends in a sunk fence; and beyond lies the park, skirted by green fields, which mount up the Berne Hills and lose themselves in the foliage of oaks, and elms, and larches. Here and there on the lawn are clumps of young aspiring cedars, silver birch trees, ash plants, and sycamores, hemmed round about with rims of white creepers and luxuriant mosses. In “Gems of the Poets,” pictorially adorned by Laydon, you will find a fanciful illustration of Gray’s well-known lines: “Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathom’d caves of ocean bear.” In the foreground there is a leafy vignette of exotic and other plants and trees sprouting up from an island-rock. Turn the water into grass, and replace the tall cocoa-nut trees with a couple of silver birches, and you have one of the Barton Hall lawn groups; for the place is so completely “shut out from the rude world” and the easterly and northern winds, that the climate is more like southern France than western England, and vegetation flourishes there nearly all the year round.