And on this platform, only seen in part, stood the squire's old-fashioned house, red-brick, with stone mullions, gable-ends, and quaint chimney-pots.

On this side the road, immediately facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage whitely emerged from the curves in the lane, while, beyond, the ground declining gave an extensive prospect of woods and cornfields, spires and farms.

Behind, from a belt of lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the parsonage-house, backed by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running in front.

The birds were still in the hedgerows,--only (as if from the very heart of the most distant woods), there came now and then the mellow note of the cuckoo.
"Verily," said Mr.Dale, softly, "my lot has fallen on a goodly heritage." The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed almost inaudibly.
Perhaps he thought of his own Summer Land, and felt that, amidst all that fresh verdure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger.
However, before the parson could notice the sigh or conjecture the cause, Dr.Riccabocca's thin lips took an expression almost malignant.
"Per Bacco!" said he; "in every country I observe that the rooks settle where the trees are the finest.

I am sure that, when Noah first landed on Ararat, he must have found some gentleman in black already settled in the pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the cattle as they came out of the Ark." The parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher, and there was in them something so deprecating rather than reproachful that Dr.Riccabocca turned away his face, and refilled his pipe.