s absence, and what excuse it
would be becoming to make, he resolved to go to London a day or two
before the event, and pay a long-promised visit to a clerical friend.

The relative situation of the houses--I mean the stone-and-lime
houses--of Durnmelling and Thornwick, was curious; and that they had at
one time formed part of the same property might have suggested itself
to any beholder. Durnmelling was built by an ancestor of Godfrey's,
who, forsaking the old nest for the new, had allowed Thornwick to sink
into a mere farmhouse, in which condition it had afterward become the
sole shelter of the withered fortunes of the Wardours. In the hands of
Godfrey's father, by a continuity of judicious cares, and a succession
of partial resurrections, it had been restored to something like its
original modest dignity. Durnmelling, too, had in part sunk into ruin,
and had been but partially recovered from it; still, it swelled
important beside its antecedent Thornwick. Nothing but a deep ha-ha
separated the two houses, of which the older and smaller occupied the
higher ground. Between it and the ha-ha was nothing but grass--in front
of the house fine enough and well enough kept to be called lawn, had
not Godfrey's pride refused the word. On the lower, the Durnmelling
side of the fence, were trees, shrubbery, and out-houses--the chimney
of one of which, the laundry, gave great offense to Mrs. Wardour, when,
as she said, wind and wash came together. But, although they stood so
near, there was no lawful means of communication between the houses
except the road; and the mile that implied was seldom indeed passed by
any of the unneighborly neighbors.

The father of Lady Margaret would at one time have purchased Thornwick
at twice its value; but the present owner could not have bought it at
half its worth. He had of late been losing money heavily--whence, in
part, arose that anxiety of Lady Margaret's not to keep Mr. Redmain
fretting for his lunch.

The house of Durnmelling, new compared with that of Thornwick, was yet,
as I have indicated, old enough to have passed also through
vicissitudes, and a large portion of the original structure had for
many years been nothing better than a ruin. Only a portion of one side
of its huge square was occupied by the family, and the rest of that
side was not habitable. Lady Margaret, of an ancient stock, had
gathered from it only pride, not reverence; therefore, while she valued
the old, she negle