Behind all lay the kitchen gardens; and behind the brewhouse a row of old yews and a part of the lawn, that also ran before the house.

The house was of three stories high, and contained about twenty rooms with the attics.
It is strange how some houses, upon a first acquaintance with them, seem like old friends; and how others, though one may have lived in them fifty years are never familiar to those who live in them.

Now Hare Street House was one of the first kind.

This very day that I first set eyes on it, it was as if I had lived there as a child.

The sunlight streamed into the Great Chamber, and past the yews into the parlour; and upon the lawns outside; and the noise of the bees in the limes was as if an organ played softly; and it was all to me as if I had known it a hundred years.
My Cousin Tom carried me upstairs presently to the Guest-chamber--a great panelled room, with a wide fire-place, above the dining-room--that I might wash my hands and face before dinner; and my heart smote me a little for all my thoughts of him, for, when all was said, he had received me very hospitably, and was now bidding me welcome again, and that I must live there as long as I would, and think of it as my home.
"And here," he said, opening a door at the foot of the bed, "is a little closet where your man can hang your clothes; it looks out upon the yard; and my room is beyond it, over the kitchen." I thanked him again and again for his kindness; and so he left me.
* * * * * We dined below presently, very excellently.