The principal entrance had been on the north, with a huge front
door and a flight of stone steps, and just space enough for a gravel
coach ring before the rapid grassy descent. Later constitutions,
however, must have eschewed that northern front door, and later
nerves that narrow verge, and on the eastern front had been added
that Gothic porch of which Emily had heard,--and a flagrantly modern
Gothic porch it was, flanked by two comical little turrets, with
loopholes, from which a thread-paper or Tom Thumb might have
defended it. Otherwise it resembled a church porch, except for the
formidable points of a sham portcullis; but there was no denying
that it greatly increased the comfort of the house, with its two
sets of heavy doors, and the seats on either side. The great hall
door had been closed up, plastered over within, and rendered
inoffensive. Towards the west there was another modern addition of
drawing and dining rooms, and handsome bedchambers above, in Gothic
taste, i.e. with pointed arches filled up with glass over the sash-
windows. The drawing-room was very pretty, with a glass door at the
end leading into an old-fashioned greenhouse, and two French windows
to the south opening upon the lawn, which soon began to slope
upwards, curving, as I said, like an amphitheatre, and was always
shady and sheltered, tilting its flower-beds towards the house as if
to display them.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73