The Argosy — page 346: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

324 Anne Hereford. Apeil 1, 1058. gown and handsome black silk apron, her gray hair banded under her close white cap. Lady Chandos spoke with her in an under-tone, most likely consulting what chamber I should be placed in, for Hill turned her eyes upon me, and looked cross. A wide staircase, its balustrades of carved oak, gilded in places, wound up to the rooms above. A gallery, lighted from above, ran along this upper floor, from wing to wing, paintings hning it. It seemed as if these wings had some time been added to the house, for they were of a different style of architecture. A green-baize door shut them out from the gallery. Beyond this was a narrow cornidor, and then a double door of stout oak, which formed the real entrance to the wings, the same on both sides. What rooms might be within them, I did not yet know. Each wing had a staircase of communication between its upper and lower floors, and also a small door of egress to the grounds on the sides of the house, where the trees grew very thick. In the east wing (the house, you must understand, facing the south) this lower outer door was kept locked and barred—to all intents and purposes, closed up; in the west wing, which was inhabited exclusively by Lady Chandos, the door was simply locked, and could be opened inside at will; though no one ever made use of it but herself, and she very rarely. Several rooms opened from the gallery to the front—all of them bed- chambers, except one: that was the library. The library was the room next to the east wing. Opposite to it was a door opening to a room that looked back, level with the north rooms in the east wing, and also with the rooms at the back of the gallery. A similar room opened from the gallery at the other end. In fact, the house was built in uniform— one end the same as the other. Between the doors of these two rooms the wall of the gallery ran unbroken; there was, in fact, no communi- cation whatever, as regards the upper rooms, between the back portion of the house and the front. And now for the ground-floor. The portico was not in the middle © of the house, but near to the east wing; one room only, the large dining-room, that seemed to be never used, lying between. The hall was rather small, lighted only with painted windows, and shut in, the oak-parlour being on the left hand as you entered. ‘Two doors at the back of the hall led, the one to the handsome staircase, the other to the kitchens and other domestic rooms belonging to the household. A spa- cious corridor, underneath the gallery above, branched off from the hall by means of an open archway behind the oak-parlour, and ran along the house; and the various reception-rooms, all looking front, opened from it. Two magnificent drawing-rooms, communicating at will, and a study or morning-room, chiefly used by Mr. Chandos. A passage at the other end of the corndor led to the rooms at the back; but there was no com- munication whatever on this lower floor with the wings. The doors in the hall, leading to the stairs and to the servants’ offices, as often as not comicloooks (CO) mn _