Perhaps this sentiment was prophetic.

One could see the house by peeping through the bars of the gates.

It was a gloomy-looking place, with a tall yew hedge round it; but in the summer-time some flowers grew about the sun-dial in the grass plat.

This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived there.

One Christmas--it must have been the Christmas before my father emigrated, or I should not remember it--we children went to a Christmas-tree festivity at the Hall.