CHAPTER VII.
IN THE SUMMER MORNING.
John Hammond loved the wild freshness of morning, and was always eager to explore a new locality; so he was up at five o'clock next morning, and out of doors before six.

He left the sophisticated beauty of the Fellside gardens below him, and climbed higher and higher up the Fell, till he was able to command a bird's-eye view of the lake and village, and just under his feet, as it were, Lady Maulevrier's favourite abode.
He was provided with a landscape glass which he always carried in his rambles, and with the aid of this he could see every stone of the building.
The house, added to at her ladyship's pleasure, and without regard to cost, covered a considerable extent of ground.

The new part consisted of a straight range of about a hundred and twenty feet, facing the lake, and commandingly placed on the crest of a steepish slope; the old buildings, at right angles with the new, made a quadrangle, the third and fourth sides of which were formed by the dead walls of servants' rooms and coach-houses, which had no windows upon this inner enclosed side.

The old buildings were low and irregular, one portion of the roof thatched, another tiled.

In the quadrangle there was an old-fashioned garden, with geometrical flower-beds, a yew tree hedge, and a stone sun-dial in the centre.