She was a
Frenchwoman by birth, but had been very long in the service of the
family, and spoke English almost without an accent; her French blood
being indicated only by her thin and withered aspect, and a greater
gentility of manner than would have been seen in an Englishwoman of
similar station. She ushered us first into a grand and noble hall, the
arched and carved oaken roof of which ascended into the gable. It was
nearly sixty feet long, and its height equal to its length,--as stately a
hall, I should imagine, as is anywhere to be found in a private mansion.
It was lighted, at one end, by a great window, beneath which, occupying
the whole breadth of the hall, hung a vast picture of the Battle of
Hastings; and whether a good picture or no, it was a rich adornment of
the hall. The walls were wainscoted high upward with oak: they were
almost covered with noble pictures of ancestry, and of kings and great
men, and beautiful women; there were trophies of armor hung aloft; and
two armed figures, one in brass mail, the other in bright steel, stood on
a raised dais, underneath the great picture. At the end of the hall,
opposite the picture, a third of the way up towards the roof, was a
gallery. All these things that I have enumerated were in perfect
condition, without rust, untouched by decay or injury of any kind; but
yet they seemed to belong to a past age, and were mellowed, softened in
their splendor, a little dimmed with time,--toned down into a venerable
magnificence.
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