CHAPTER I.
SCROOPE MANOR.
Some years ago, it matters not how many, the old Earl of Scroope lived at Scroope Manor in Dorsetshire.

The house was an Elizabethan structure of some pretensions, but of no fame.

It was not known to sight-seers, as are so many of the residences of our nobility and country gentlemen.
No days in the week were appointed for visiting its glories, nor was the housekeeper supposed to have a good thing in perquisites from showing it.

It was a large brick building facing on to the village street,--facing the village, if the hall-door of a house be the main characteristic of its face; but with a front on to its own grounds from which opened the windows of the chief apartments.

The village of Scroope consisted of a straggling street a mile in length, with the church and parsonage at one end, and the Manor-house almost at the other.