use stood on the outskirts of the little town of
Oakhurst, which, if he but travels in the right direction, the patient
reader will find on the road between Farnham and Reigate,--and Madame
Bernstein's servants naturally pulled at the first bell at hand, when
the young Virginian met with his mishap. A few hundred yards farther,
was the long street of the little old town, where hospitality might have
been found under the great swinging ensigns of a couple of tuns, and
medical relief was to be had, as a blazing gilt pestle and mortar
indicated. But what surgeon could have ministered more cleverly to
a patient than Harry's host, who tended him without a fee, or what
Boniface could make him more comfortably welcome?

Two tall gates, each surmounted by a couple of heraldic monsters, led
from the highroad up to a neat, broad stone terrace, whereon stood
Oakhurst House; a square brick building, with windows faced with stone,
and many high chimneys, and a tall roof surmounted by a fair balustrade.
Behind the house stretched a large garden, where there was plenty of
room for cabbages as well as roses to grow; and before the mansion,
separated from it by the highroad, was a field of many acres, where the
Colonel's cows and horses were at grass. Over the centre window was a
carved shield supported by the same monsters who pranced or ramped upon
the entrance-gates; and a coronet over the shield. The fact is, that the
house had been originally the jointure-house of Oakhurst Castle, which
stood hard by,--its chimneys and turrets appearing over the surrounding
woods, now bronzed with the darkest foliage of summer. Mr. Lambert's
was the greatest house in Oakhurst town; but the Castle was of
more importance than all the town put together. The Castle and the
jointure-house had been friends of many years' date. Their fathers had
fought side by side in Queen Anne's wars. There were two small pieces
of ordnance on the terrace of the jointure-house, and six before the
Castle, which had been taken out of the same privateer, which Mr.
Lambert and his kinsman and commander, Lord Wrotham, had brought into
Harwich in one of their voyages home from Flanders with despatches from
the great Duke.

His toilet completed with Mr. Gumbo's aid, his fair hair neatly dressed
by that artist, and his open ribboned sleeve and wounded shoulder
supported by a handkerchief which hung from his neck, Harry Warrington
made his way out of the sick-chamber, preceded