The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-01-23
HER ANCESTRAL HOME.
ny ANNE RICHARDSON EARLE,

For Il number OF years unusual 10 our
young land and restless population the
Landor mansion had been handed down
from father to son, and known as esquire
Landor's place,
1t stood alone, well back from the vii
lage, and was quite hidden from distant
view by the immense trees which spread
about it. A nearer inspection, however,
showed its pillared portico and heavy
brass knockered door, its many windows
with their small picturesque panes, and
its gabled roof topped by the huge square
chimneys of by-gone days, There was a
reverend majesty about it at this near
view as of venerable aristocrat who
shows his birth and breeding.
At one of its windows, upon an after
noon in the fall, very modern young
lady was sitting, the straight back Of her
chair reaching high above her we'll
dressed shoulders, her nineteenth century
half-shoes resting upon a footstool OF
eighteenth century needlework
A new silver amounted travelling ink
stand stood upon the high sill beside
her, a new silver-bouud lap-tablet rested
on her lap, and she was writing with an
unhesitating speed which showed that
her heart was in her theme.
"My dearest, dearest girl" she wrote,
''here am, alone in my glory, for good
ness only knows how many hours, while
Aunt Augusta and the 'retainers' are busy
in the kitchen. | have offered my valua-
BILE aid, which has been declined, so my
conscience is clear to devote myself to
you. am glad that it is to you, and to
you only, for do not like to worry NAM
ma, with true accounts of my unnatural
sentiments; yet it is relief once in a
while to be able to say exactly what one
means.
"Confdentially, then, and to be out
with the whole secret at once, this is a
perfectly terrible place. An ancestral
mansion is a very fine thing to pride your
self upon when you are snug and safe in
the city where you cannot get at it, and
its ghosts and damp cannot get at you,
but in the reality it is awful in the ex-
IRENE.
''Poor little Aunt Augusta goes about
all the time with no other company than
the relics of those who are in their graves.
She shows me about the house, and not a
room but some member of the family has
died in; not an article of furniture, nor
picture, not even a book, but has a
history connected with her dead parents,
brothers, and sisters, grandparents and
their families, or great grandparents and
theirs.
Yesterday, as we stood in the Ii,
brary, she pointed to long narrow table
in the corner. THAT is the table upon
which all their coffins have stood, she
said, quietly. 1t gave me shock which
Ibelieve ! shall never get over. shall
do no more reading in the library. There
are very many and excellent books, by
the-way, but they are also of dead and
gone day.
~ do wish that you could see the por-
traits here and the miniatures. My poor
little great grandmother Lander, who
died when she was twenty three, only a
year older than |, and two of grand
mother Landor when she was young. She
was a McGregor, and there are some
Scotch portraits of her ancestors which
are very curious. So you see, my dear
there is plenty of blood, but, after all,
what does it amount to- With the ex-
ception of Aunt Augusta, the Landors
have been such short lived family. |
am thankful that get my constitution
and blood too from mamma. | don't
care if her people did make their money
in cattle, and hadn't any ancestors. They
have at least the money, and are alive to
enjoy it.
81 believe Aunt Augusta thinks that
papa made mistake in marrying, at least
she never speaks of mamma, and | re-
member when | was little and used to
come here that it was always papa who
brought me,
yesterday she talkedto me for a long
time about my responsibilities as her
heir, and had not the heart to tell her
that if she left the place to me l should
sell it. 1t is an idea which shocks even
me, but sentiment Is a luxury which has
its drawbacks, and will not encourage
it. Of course l should keep all the pict-
ures and the silver and books, and a
great deal of the furniture, but the house
should go. cannot decide whether it is
my duty to tell Aunt A, and make her
declining days miserable, or whether it is
best to say nothing at all. If there were
any one else who would value the place
more it would decide me, but l shall be
the only surviving Landor.
ooh, write to me, Margaret dear, and
think of me all the time! hope to be
able to get away gracefully in two weeks
in fact cannot stand it longer. Have
you seen anything of F. G.? If you
should, and he should ask for me, tell
him that he may write to me after all; it
is so unbearably lonely that | should be
glad if he would, but I will not promise
to reply. should be sure to shock him,
heso adores old things, and the idea OF
family. Pooh!
"Give my love to any of the girls who
ask for me; and if you go to see mamma,
as hope you will, do not show her my
letter, but tell her long to get back to
her, which is true-true-true!"
A week passed, and the same young
lady sat at the same window and wrote
Margaret Dearest-Yours came safely.
Such lecture! But / expected it.
shall not try to argue with you, at least
not on paper, but / know that if you had
the misfortune to be next heir to such a
funeral pile, you would lose no time in
turning your cheerful back upon it. As
for my keeping 1t for summer place,
should never come here summers any
more than | should winters, so where
would be the usel
"Why, my dear girl, aside from the
fact that the place is haunted, which il
is with memories, if nothing more, it is
so vast, 80 gloomy and so damp that nc
human being could be happy in it, anG
to descend to minor drawbacks, there il
not a door that can open myself, nor &
window that can raise. The doors are
not made with knobs, but with kind
of hanging handle set on thick brass
escutcheon which l suppose holds {
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