2 November — A Woodland Estate. 



ment which had never been either extensive or splendid, 

 but our religious predecessors had left upon the place 

 that which suits my taste and temper better than either 

 size or splendor — the impress of a quiet feeling, in 

 harmony with the perfect seclusion that reigned there 

 from year to year. They had left, too, a lovely chapel 

 of perfect fourteenth-century work, which had been used 

 by the farmer as a barn, and so little injured (for the soft 

 hay did no harm to the delicate sculpture), that when 

 I restored it some years since the walls and vaults 

 required nothing but a careful cleaning, and the only 

 serious outlay was that for a new pavement and the 

 repair of the external roof. The monastic buildings pro- 

 vided a capacious residence for one of my tenants, and a 

 house for my own family ; but, as our visits had been so 

 rare, we had gone to no expense in luxuries, and the 

 furniture consisted of a few old things that had been 

 left there by my maternal forefathers, who were people 

 of simple tastes. Beyond the repair of the chapel which 

 had not been costly, I had laid out scarcely anything on 

 these old buildings in the Val Sainte Veronique, but I 

 thought of them always with a certain quiet affection, 

 and sought their shelter willingly in the time of my 

 deepest sorrow, going to that secluded place with a half- 

 religious feeling, as if its monastic associations invited 

 me, and made the retreat more perfect and its tranquillity 

 more serene. 



I have said that the buildings were situated in a little 

 valley. Three tiny meadows occupied the bottom, like 

 a carpet of greenest velvet, and in the midst of them 



