CHAPTER I. A WARNING. It was so late in the evening when I arrived at Scarp that I had but little opportunity of observing the external appearance of the house. But as far as I could judge in the dim twilight, it was a very stately edifice of seemingly great age built of white stone. When I passed the porch, however, I could observe its internal beauties much more closely, for a large wood fire burned in the hall, and all the rooms and passages were lighted. The hall was almost baronial in its size, and opened on to a staircase of dark oak, so wide and so generous in its slope that a carriage might almost have been driven up it. The rooms were large and lofty with their walls, like those of staircase, paneled with oak black from age. This somber material would have made the house intensely gloomy but for the enormous width and height of both of size and warmth. The windows were set in deep embrasures, and on the ground story, reached from quite level with the floor to almost the ceiling, the fireplaces were quite in the old style, large and surrounded with massive oak carvings representing on each some seen from biblical history. And at the side of each fireplace rose a pair of massive carved iron fire dogs. It was altogether just such a house as would have delighted the heart of Washington Irving or Nathaniel Hawthorne. The house had been lately restored, but in affecting the restoration, comfort had not been forgotten, and any modern improvement which tended to increase the homelike appearance of the rooms had been added. The old diamond -paned casements, which had probably remained from the Elizabethan age, had given place to more useful plate glass, and in like manner many other changes had taken place. But so judiciously had every change been affected that nothing of the new clashed with the old, but the harmony of all the parts seemed complete. I thought it no wonder that Mrs. Trevor had fallen in love with Scarp the first time she'd seen it. Mrs. Trevor's liking the place was tantamount to her husband's buying it, for he was so wealthy that he could get almost anything money could purchase. He was himself a man of good taste, but still he felt his inferiority to his wife in this respect so much that he never dreamt of differing in opinion from her on any matter of choice or judgment. Mrs. Trevor had, without exception, the best taste of anyone whom I ever knew, and strange to say her taste was not confined to any branch of art. She did not write or paint or sing, but still her judgment in writing, painting, or music was unquestioned by her friends. It seemed as if nature had denied to her the power of execution in any separate branch of art in order to make her perfect in appreciation of what was