The humblest cottage, with four tiny square rooms and a thatched roof, and just a patch of old-fashioned garden with a sweetbrier hedge and roses growing here and there among the cabbages; would have been a pleasanter habitation than Wyncomb, Ellen Carley thought.
Mr.Whitelaw exhibited an unwonted liberality upon this occasion.

The dinner was a ponderous banquet, and the dessert a noble display of nuts and oranges, figs and almonds and raisins, flanked by two old-fashioned decanters of port and sherry; and both the bailiff and his host did ample justice to the feast.

It was a long dreary afternoon of eating and drinking; and Ellen was not sorry to get away from the prim wainscoted parlour, where her father and Mr.Whitelaw were solemnly sipping their wine, to wander over the house with Mrs.Tadman.
It was about four o'clock when she slipped quietly out of the room at that lady's invitation, and the lobbies and long passages had a shadowy look in the declining light.

There was light enough for her to see the rooms, however; for there were no rare collections of old china, no pictures or adornments of any kind, to need a minute inspection.
"It's a fine old place, isn't it ?" asked Mrs.Tadman.

"There's not many farmers can boast of such a house as Wyncomb." "It's large enough," Ellen answered, with a tone which implied the reverse of admiration; "but it's not a place I should like to live in.
I'm not one to believe in ghosts or such nonsense, but if I could have any such foolish thoughts, I should have them here.