Drowsily, as if half asleep, the blackbirds whistled their couplets, and in the thickest hedges the little brown thrushes sang softly to their brooding mates.

For half an hour they kept this heavenly path, and then a sudden turn brought them their first sight of the old home.
It was a stately, irregular building of red brick, sandaled and veiled in ivy.

The numerous windows were all latticed, the chimneys in picturesque stacks, the sloping roof made of flags of sandstone.

It stood in the center of a large garden, at the bottom of which ran a babbling little river--a cheerful tongue of life in the sweet, silent place.

They crossed it by a pretty bridge, and in a few minutes stood at the great door of the mansion.