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ssss1.Residence of the Marquis of Bath.

The house at Marston is a perfect sun-trap, and although the building could lay no claim to architectural beauty, yet as the birthplace of my father and of many of my ancestors, whose portraits adorn the walls, I dearly loved the place, where so many of our Christmasses were spent with innumerable cousins of different ages. Cousins we were indeed, for the master and mistress of that house were cousins themselves, and my father’s brother had married my mother’s sister.

LONGLEAT.

The country round Marston affords a charming type of home English scenery, being almost entirely pasture land, embellished with very pretty woodlands and several country seats of great beauty, especially Longleat and Mells Park. Walks, rides, and drives are all varied in their character, and the road to Bath (in those days there was no short-cut by rail) was essentially picturesque, and as full of ups and downs as life itself!

LORD JOHN TOWNSHEND

Another house^[18] was in Hertfordshire, close, indeed, to the town of Hertford itself. It is a quaint, old, red brick building with charming rooms, and a gallery that in my early childhood I considered interminable as to length; it was the property of my uncle by marriage, Lord John Townshend. He was indeed a link with the past, having been the friend of Fox and Sheridan, and having sat to Sir Joshua Reynolds. His wife^[19] was my mother’s sister (her elder by nearly twenty years), who retained till an advanced age the traces of that beauty which was immortalised by Hoppner in one of his most delightful portraits, still hanging on the walls in the dear old dwelling. When very young, she had united herself to a man whose cruelty and immorality made her life miserable. The marriage was dissolved, and Lord John Townshend, as her second husband, did all in his power to make her forget the sorrows which had clouded her early years. But long before I knew of this sad passage in her history, I had observed the shade of melancholy and mystery which hung over my dear aunt’s aspect and manner.