The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-31
no ways remarkable in the way OF its

no ways remarkable in the way OF Its
lay or the view it controlled.
There We're terraces and marble steps
ana balustrades surmounted with carved
urns from which fell cascades OF Towering
vines on the great drawing-room side, and
long arched gallery skirting these ter
races where the orangery was, and where
there was q charming miniature theater
Tor private theatricalS. There were the
choicest. rarest trees that can be made to
grow in England. and an ash that Queen
Elizabeth had planted when she had been
entertained there generations since. Think
only of the most elaborate description OF
perfect English home such as you have
read about from your childhood | found
everything for which / looked, and was
anxiously scanning the whole beautiful
scene for fear something that | had ex-
pected in Just such place might be left
out. Oh, l must except the peacock. He
was not on the terrace where | had antlci-
pated that would find him, where all the
novels and all the pictures of such scenes
had led me TO believe ne would be.
The browning JOY of it all was the rose
garden. The lavish color and sweetness of
every petal that an English sun viii bring
To perfection was inclosed in great cir
cuiar hedge twenty feet high, through
which arches were cut. framing from the
outside a perfect riot of color. Following
the hedge on the inside were fluted marble
columns that in their variety and Gaping.
for they were Corinthian, Doric, Ionic and
1ambic. made me imagine them a collec-
ton brought from Grecian and Italian
ruins. These were connected by graceful
garlands of some delicate plant like smi-
lax. The effect of these white pillars,
slender and symetrical as they We're
G4I,Sf hA layl- NJ IN w
was unique. 1t seemed as if we must see
the floating garments Of nymphs weaving
in and out OF such an enchanted circle.
We looked out from the arches of the
hedge and there were the gay coiors OF
many Worth-gowned women strolling over
the wide lawn that led away from the
main facade of the castle. SO L knew that
the roses that caught us as We passed were
those OF our own day and not OF any Area
dian period.
1t was very hard to leave such fragrant
and ideal spot, but the guest whom her
ladyship had "told OFF, to show us the
grounds could not be taxed too much with
made a jingle would perforce have
dropped among the bloom and perfume of
those flowers and begun to rhyme. so it
was Just as well 10 be ''called OFF, in time
to save such disaster.
There was beyond the roses an Italian
box bordered garden of many beautiful
flowers, wide lawn with spreading
beeches, and, quite beyond there, such
masses of luxuriant color the very earth
seemed atlame. thought that We knew
something about rhododendrOns. 1t is
quite possible that l might have told En-
glishmen that they knew nothing OF how
they could grow unless they crossed the
seas If | had not been led on to see these
banks of blossoms which extended u long
distance in beds fifteen feet wide on either
side of a straight, artificial sheet of water.
There was scarcely space tor the reIiec-
ton of a floating cloud, so completely had
the flowers mirrored themselves on the
surface. 1t was most peculiar effect TO
see this long stretch of water aglow with
orange, red, purple and blue. l saw
clumps of this hower on the lawns at other
English places carefully trimmed and
nourlshed by the gardeners, one of whom
named them to one OF my friends as his
"Rowdy Damiens," but nowhere had l
imagined that there could be such luxuri-
ance as on the border OF that ornamental
stream
The entrance, the halls, the drawing and
dining-rooms, the library OF the castle,
were all that one would have wished them
to be, but not at all more than some of the
fine places in our own country. Amerl-
cans do not realize to what an extent the
improvement in our interiors has adj
places as they look when occupied. Those
that We See for 4 half crown while the
family are absent are at such a disadvan-
tage, swathed in linen or only lighted from
one blind that the housekeeper carefully
sets ajar. But the conservatory in this
great house was quite up TO my girlhood's
ideas of how such bowers should be.
Again, the English novelist formed my ex-
pectations. | supposed there would be
room enough to walk about and kneel in
front of the heroine without knocking over
neighboring potted plants, and when
Fifth avenue conservatories were revealed
to me, when | was very young and very
callow, l instantly discovered that to sit
under spreading leaves on comfortable
divans one must go back to the pages of
Ouida or Mrs. Edwards, whose heroes and
herolneS baSked under pomegranateS or
the fronds of ferns and palms, while the
sun or moon shone through the transpa-
rent roof.
There was abundance of room to dawdle
about the groups of shrubbery and take
our coffee after luncheon was served, and
then was taken through corridor which
was once the cloister where cowled monks
walked and told their beads. for. like
many an old Edgiish place, it had been a
monastery.
We walked carefully around the brass
efligy of knight that was in the tiled
flooring. who came back from the cru
sades to thus end his days. At the end of
the corridor WAS the chapel, too old for
me to venture on date, but ancient in
all its look except, perhaps. the stained
glass which streamed over the floor and
checkered the marble with purple and
crimson.
And when at the end of what was to
have been "quiet Sunday" | recalled the
vision of this rare place and half apollo
gized for talking to my hosts with such en-
thusiasm, l was put at ease by the remark
that need not entirely quench my rap
lures, for Disraeli, with all his sumptuous
and oriental tastes, had chosen and made
the rare place as above all that he knew
the best for the scene of Lothian"
ELIZABETH Ii. CUSTER.
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