'Poor old porteress!' says I, inwardly.

'You little know that it is the Historian of Snobs whom you let in!' The gates were passed.

A damp green stretch of park spread right and left immeasurably, confined by a chilly grey wall, and a damp long straight road between two huge rows of moist, dismal lime-trees, leads up to the Castle.

In the midst of the park is a great black tank or lake, bristling over with rushes, and here and there covered over with patches of pea-soup.

A shabby temple rises on an island in this delectable lake, which is approached by a rotten barge that lies at roost in a dilapidated boat house.