Without much regard to harmony, simply to satisfy
the proprietor's convenience, and together formed
one of those shapeless, uncouth piles, which, while
they usually stand for thrift and family, are rarely
found in later times, even in a New Epgland land-
scape. It stood, moreover, under the arms of the
old elms, and guarded by stalwart sycamores, in
mingled garden and orchard, such as old mansions
often display. In the late May-day, it looked som-
bre and grave, as the sunlight streamed through
the gray elms and flecked it with alternate light
and shade ; and its gray mosses on the roof and
weather-stained" sides, and a general calm, deserted
aspect, revealed at once its age and story. All this
■was to have been seen by Arthur, as in company
with Sam Jones, " the help at the farm," he found
himself emerging from the village into the quiet
gray road which led between the rough stone-walls
amongst thick shrubbery, set there as it seems to
conceal such ugliness, to Bassett Farm. Whether
Arthur was busy with such or far different matters,
as he stood upon the broad stone-step of Bassett
House to receive the courtesies and protestations of
black Cloe, one of the freed bondwomen of that
New England society which once dealt in Africans,
as strict property, every student of the human heart
can judge for himself. Here, then, was at last
home ; vacant, indeed, of some whose smile would
have lighted up the old house into true transfigura-
tion of love and tenderness, and whose voice should



ABOUT HOUSES. 33

have repeated those dear old words, that, when they
fall upon the heart, are always fresh and living, as if
ten thousand crumbled lips had never spoken them
to ten thousand crumbled hearts, — but still home.
