Here are the
carriage-drive and carriage-sweep; then there's a belt of trees, and
beyond that, shaped by the valley, which gradually narrows to the incline
of the hills, kitchen-gardens, glass-houses, a pond (fed by a beck), water
meadows, and hanging woods. Above those again heather-clad slopes climb to
piled rocks and a ragged sky-line. It is a fine property with 5,000 acres
of shooting, a good many farms, and a hill village to its account. The
lodge at the gate was half a mile away, at the end of a good avenue of
beech and sycamore.
Mr. Nevile Ingram who, at thirty, had still the air of a brisk young man
and was owner by inheritance of this place, arrived with his guests by the
7.4 train from London. The omnibus brought the four of them, with a maid
sitting on the box beside Frodsham, and a bank of luggage behind her head.
No parrots, no dogs; but a Mr. Chevenix brought his fishing-rods. Besides
this Mr. Chevenix, who had been here before, there was an elderly Mrs.
Devereux, white-haired and short-sighted, who used, whenever she could
find them, a pair of long-handled glasses, and a young Mrs. Wilmot,
pretty, very fair, rather helpless. It was her maid who shared the box-
seat with Frodsham.
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