ll sit in
myself; you may draw out from the recess for yourself one of two little
sloping easy-chairs, which have been placed there by Mrs. and Miss
Aubrey for their own sole use, considering that they are excellent
judges of the period at which Mr. Aubrey has been long enough alone, and
at which they should come in and gossip with him. We may as well draw
the dusky green curtains across the window, through which the moon
shines at present rather too brightly.--So now, after coaxing up the
fire, I will proceed to tell you a little bit of pleasant family
history.

The Aubreys are a Yorkshire family--the younger branch of the ancient
and noble family of the Dreddlingtons. Their residence, YATTON, is in
the north-eastern part of the county, not above fifteen or twenty miles
from the sea. The hall is one of those old structures, the sight of
which throws you back a couple of centuries in our English history. It
stands in a park, crowded with trees, many of them of great age and
size, and under which two or three hundred head of deer perform their
capricious and graceful gambols. In approaching from London, you strike
off from the great north road into a broad by-way; after going down
which for about a mile, you come to a straggling little village called
Yatton, at the farther extremity of which stands a little aged gray
church, with a tall thin spire; an immense yew-tree, with a kind of
friendly gloom, overshadowing, in the little churchyard, nearly half the
graves. Rather in the rear of the church is the vicarage-house, snug and
sheltered by a line of fir-trees. After walking on about eighty yards,
you come to high park-gates, and see a lodge just within, on the left
hand side, sheltered by an elm-tree. Having passed through these gates,
you wind your way for about two-thirds of a mile along a gravel walk,
among the thickening trees, till you come to a ponderous old crumbling
looking red brick gateway of the time of Henry VII., with one or two
deeply set stone windows in the turrets, and mouldering stone-capped
battlements peeping through high-climbing ivy. There is an old
escutcheon immediately over the point of the arch; and as you pass
underneath, if you look up, you can plainly see the groove of the old
portcullis still remaining. Having passed under this castellated
remnant, you enter a kind of court formed by a high wall completely
covered with ivy, running along in a line from the right hand turret of
the gateway t