the breeze, and, altogether, she was as complete
a picture as one would wish to see of youth, health, and
self-complacency.

The nonchalance with which she approached us was a thing I have never
seen equalled. The independence of American children is proverbial; but
democratic institutions never produced anything more saucily
self-reliant than this little Briton. Without looking at us, or deigning
any apology for the great gate,--which, it seems, is a mere barricade,
not made to be opened,--she unlocked a side-postern, a rude door,
consisting of two or three rough boards, and made a motion for us to
enter. As we trod the time-worn pavement of the outer court, and gained
an open quadrangle round which various apartments were grouped,
imagination once more took possession of me, and I found myself peopling
the place with its original inmates.

"Oh, how old and story-like!" I exclaimed to my companions. "Can you not
imagine knights on horseback prancing over these stones, and alighting
at the great hall-door beyond?"

"Horses never came up here!" was the interruption which my suggestion
met from our practical little guide. "Horses couldn't climb those
stairs," she added, somewhat scornfully; and I then observed that I had
unconsciously ascended a rough, angular stairway, passable only to
foot-passengers.

Knights on foot, then, my fancy at once substituted; and as the child,
now commencing her duties as show-woman, pointed out the servants'
offices, it was no difficult matter to picture the baron's retainers
lazily grouped around the stone walls of the low cells, for such the
apartments were, polishing their master's armor, or bousing over jugs of
ale, while handsome pages loitered about the court-yard, waiting the
summons of their lord, or the sound of their lady's silver whistle.
Fancy was an indispensable attendant in making the circuit of the
apartments, which surrounded at least three sides of this outer
quadrangle. Without her aid, they were simply remarkable for their
similarity, their vacancy, their unfitness for any modern purpose save
that of sheep-pens or lumber-rooms. Destitute of windows, so that the
sun and air found admittance only through the doorway, without
fireplaces, boarded floors, or plastered walls, they presented simply so
many square feet of space walled in by stone and mortar. But Fancy had
the power to enliven, furnish, people them. She suggested that their
very number was an indication of