BAUDRY'S EUROPEAN LIBRARY 3, QUAI MALAQUAIS, NEAR THE PONT DES ARTS AND STASSIN ET XAVIER, 9, RUE DU COQ SOLD ALSO BY AMYOT, RUE DE LA PAIX; THEOPHILE BARROIS, QUAI VOLTAIRE 1845 143.D. YOUNG LOVE. CHAPTER I. "DANS le pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois." Happy is the man who, wishing to live and die in the aromatic odour of country greatness, yet possessing but a moderate estate, has his acres situated in a neighbourhood where there is no dukery. Colonel William Henry Dermont, of THE MOUNT, was a happy man; for in this very essential particular he was blest beyond the common lot of English country gentlemen, having neither duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron, baronet, nay, not even a knight, within many miles of him; and with a snug, wellwooded little estate, producing at easy rents very little less than four thousand a year, he knew himself to be, by far, the greatest man in the neighbourhood, and that, too, without having to do battle for the pre-eminence either at assizes, sessions, or rail-road meetings. The Mount was situated in a parish called Stoke, but respecting the name of the county I shall be silent-for how many might I not offend by naming any county, with a statement annexed, setting forth that there was a part of it where, for many miles, there was not such a thing as a nobleman's seat to be seen! The Mount, however, was a very nice, comfortable, pretty place, with plenty of wood and water around it, and built moreover, with every suitable accommodation for a family possessed of such revenue as I have mentioned, but without any out-of-the-common-way extravagances in stables, dogkennels, and pineries, demanding every day of the year greater expenditure than it is at all times convenient to make. The soil was kindly, and grateful for the care bestowed upon it, producing good returns of corn and butter, fruit and flowers. What could any reasonable man or woman wish for more? |