Miss Fosbrook said she would put away the flower and come back again;
and she settled the branch in the chimney, where it looked very
graceful, and really did enliven the room, and then walked out
towards the lawn.
There was a lawn in front of the house, part of which had been
formerly levelled for a bowling-green, and was kept clear of shrubs
or flower-beds. Beyond was a smooth, rather rapid slope towards a
quiet river, beyond which there rose again a beautiful green field,
crowned above by a thick wood, ending at the top in some scraggy
pine-trees, with scanty dark foliage at the top of their rude russet
arms. Fine trees stood out here and there upon the slope of the
field; and Captain Merrifield's fine sleeked cows were licking each
other, or chewing the cud, under them.
There was a white Chinese bridge, the rails all zigzags, and patterns
running this way and that, so that it must have been very ugly and
glaring before the white paint had faded so much.
The house was a respectable old stone building, rather brown and
grey, and the stone somewhat disposed to peel off in flakes; the
windows large sashes, set in great projecting squared stones, the
tallest and biggest at the top.
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