Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/229

most beautiful parks within reach of the Metropolis; a park magnificently wooded, every tree inhabited with feathery songsters; deer and rabbit careering and frisking careering and frisking hither and thither, everything pertaining to picturesque Nature, making the whole grand, yet peaceful beyond expression.

Here is the "home" of her who has but lately come from it to take an important place in the world, in the affections of the people, and in the making of the history of the British constitution.

A simple, unpretentious entrance-gate leads me into the grounds fronting the house; grounds not widely extensive, but yet of some considerable dimensions, replete with trees of all sorts: oak, chestnut, cedars and conifers; rich in shrubs and flowers, with the green grass plots winding in and out of prettily-laid-out beds. Almost directly, one is in front of the house, quaint and old-world in appearance, entered by an old-fashioned portico and double doors, the flower-filled windows stretching away on either side. Indeed, as you step inside the Entrance-hall you may well imagine yourself in a conservatory, so rich is it in palms, ferns, and banks of flowers Deliciously cool, though! with its marble floor and many windows: just the place for a comfortable rest in one of the many capacious seats, some of them of an antiquity that carries one back to silken and velvet attire and powdered wig. What a collection of curios, too! Rococo cabinets, Oriental Egyptian pottery, stags' heads, tables of all vases, ages, shapes, and designs, stone images, a stuffed falcon on the wrist of a gauntletted hand, a veritable grandfather's clock, some fine old paintings, some uniquely framed mirrors, and a rare collection of valuable china; in short, an altogether fine show of much interest.

The Entrance-hall.
From a Photo. by Gunn and Stuart.

I was somewhat puzzled by an unusually large number of walking-sticks here confronting me; quite a wonderful collection of every shape and make. These, I found, were mainly the property of His Highness the Duke of Teck, and had been presented to him on different occasions by Royal and distinguished personages.

Before I leave this Hall, I have come to the conclusion that I am in a house whose