I have said that Sir Peregrine Orme was not a rich man, meaning thereby¹ that he was not a rich man considering his acknowledged position in the county. Such men not uncommonly² have their tens, twelves, and twenty thousands a year; but Sir Peregrine's estate did not give him above three or four. He was lord of the manor³ of Hamworth, and possessed⁴ seignorial rights, or rather the skeleton and remembrance of such rights with reference to a very large district of country; but his actual property—that from which he still received the substantial benefits of ownership—was not so large as those of some of his neighbours. There was, however, no place within the county which was so beautifully situated⁵ as The Cleeve, or which had about it so many of the attractions of age. The house itself had been built at two periods,—a new set of rooms having been added to the remains⁶ of the old Elizabethan structure in the time of Charles II. It had not about it anything that was peculiarly grand or imposing⁸, nor were the rooms large or even commodious⁹; but everything was old, venerable, and picturesque¹⁰. Both the dining-room and the library were panelled with black wainscoating; and though the drawing-rooms were papered, the tall, elaborately-worked wooden chimney-pieces still stood in them, and a wooden band or belt round the rooms showed that the panels were still there, although hidden by the modern paper.