150 . 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
when General Marchmont took possession of the 
splendid old mansion, as a gift from those who then 
ruled the nation, and a reward for his unimpeached 
valour, he was led to believe that he had only 
accepted what would have fallen to the nation, or, 
at best, slumbered for long years in the Court of 
Chancery, until some unknown and undreamed-of 
claimant had risen up, and groped his way towards 
it through the dark and uncertain avenues of the 
law. So he entered those walls with no other 
feeling than that of sorrow for the ancient pos¬ 
sessors who were dead. Care had been taken 
to remove all the old domestics, and, with the 
exception of a parliamentary agent, who had been 
sent down to take an inventory of the property, 
no one besides knew that the young lady in deep 
mourning was the Lady Neville, for she had never 
accosted one of them before her departure, nor 
quitted the apartments which had been allotted to 
her during the confiscation, saving to ramble in the 
ancient garden. 
Ellen Neville was too well versed in the changes 
which those stormy times produced, to be at all 
astonished at what had happened, for she knew 
that she had suffered as others had done who had 
fallen from their high estate ; and although in heart 
a stanch Loyalist, she had heard so much said in 
praise of the young general,—of his valour, his losses, 
