This feeling is very much fostered by the importance which they enjoy
on their hereditary domains. The family mansion is an old manor-house,
standing in a retired and beautiful part of Yorkshire. Its inhabitants
have been always regarded, through the surrounding country, as "the
great ones of the earth;" and the little village near the Hall looks
up to the Squire with almost feudal homage. An old manor-house, and an
old family of this kind, are rarely to be met with at the present day;
and it is probably the peculiar humour of the Squire that has retained
this secluded specimen of English housekeeping in something like the
genuine old style.
I am again quartered in the panelled chamber, in the antique wing of
the house. The prospect from the window, however, has quite a
different aspect from that which it wore on my winter visit. Though
early in the month of April, yet a few warm, sunshiny days have drawn
forth the beauties of the spring, which, I think, are always most
captivating on their first opening. The parterres of the old-fashioned
garden are gay with flowers; and the gardener has brought out his
exotics, and placed them along the stone balustrades. The trees are
clothed with green buds and tender leaves.
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