Now uncle Robert was the clergyman in Lincolnshire of whom mention has been made, and he was among those two or three who believed in Mary Belton with an implicit faith,--as was also his wife.

"I will go to uncle Robert, Will, and then you will be driven to get a wife." "If my sister ever leaves my house, whether there be a wife in it or not," Will had answered, "I will never put trust in any woman again." Plaistow Manor-house or Hall was a fine brick mansion, built in the latter days of Tudor house architecture, with many gables and countless high chimneys,--very picturesque to the eye, but not in all respects comfortable as are the modern houses of the well-to-do squirearchy of England.

And, indeed, it was subject to certain objectionable characteristics which in some degree justified the scorn which Mr.Amedroz intended to throw upon it when he declared it to be a farmhouse.

The gardens belonging to it were large and excellent; but they did not surround it, and allowed the farm appurtenances to come close up to it on two sides.

The door which should have been the front door, opening from the largest room in the house, which had been the hall and which was now the kitchen, led directly into the farmyard.