unrolls itself before the traveller who climbs the hill from Caersws, and passes through the gateway on the ridge to Park. Right and left the pleasant valley stretches far away, with other hills beyond the vale, and here, just below the crest, is the house once built by the voluptuous. Earl. Why, and for whom, the master of Kenilworth built on these lone hills there is no record or remembrance. The remains show that it was well done. An enormous stone chimney with some little black-and-white work is all that shows outside; the greater part has been bricked over. Gardens and orchards slope down the steep hillside to big barns and stables far below. Picturesque Scotch firs and yews give dignity to the approach. A flock of forty turkeys is evidently modern, but looks homely and useful.

The

Instead of

We are welcomed inside and shown around. state staircase is very fine and curious. fine and curious. balusters there have been great oak planks cut into fantastic devices. Even the squared logs for steps are slightly moulded on the risers. Talking of this staircase as being rather unique, X said that the one at his home was cut out of solid oak and richly carved. I had never noticed that, although I had often gone up and down it. The modern one is much grander and more elaborate, though, to our thinking, now rather spoilt with having been polished. If the oak had been left to darken with age it would have looked much better. The only photographs taken at Park were two of the stairs, which are here reproduced as one and contrasted with the staircase at Abney. The lobbies and rooms are panelled with oak, some plain, some ornamented. The drawing-room, with grand oak up to the carved moulding at the ceiling, has been painted mustard colour, very like the colour they daubed over Lady Anne Bland's monument in Didsbury Church at the last alterations. The mantelpiece in another room is wonderfully fine, even to the beards of

the men, as our hostess shows us, but it is far too dark for us to photograph in our short time. In the wall between these two rooms is a secret chamber, and another, we are told, is in the cellar. In two dark

passages are sudden drops of stairs that might be yawning for another Amy. What ghosts of jewelled smiling Leicesters, with deadly rapier and deadlier poison, may flit here in the still midnight; or Elizabethan dames, in fantastic frills and stomachers, who, in the glimpses of the moon, gaze again on the scenes of their revels and their hate!