My uncle's name is Joseph Polwarth, and this
is the gate to Osterfield Park. People know it as the Park-gate."
The house was not one of those trim, modern park-lodges, all angles
and peaks, which one sees everywhere now-a-days, but a low cottage,
with a very thick, wig-like thatch, into which rose two astonished
eyebrows over the stare of two half-awake dormer-windows. On the
front of it were young leaves and old hips enough to show that in
summer it must be covered with roses.
Wingfold entered at once, and followed her through the kitchen, upon
which the door immediately opened, a bright place, with stone floor,
and shining things on the walls, to a neat little parlour, cozy and
rather dark, with a small window to the garden behind, and a smell
of last year's roses.
"My uncle will be here in a few minutes," she said, placing a chair
for him. "I would have had a fire here, but my uncle always talks
better amongst his books. He expected you, but my lord's steward
sent for him up to the new house."
He took the chair she offered him, and sat down to wait. He had not
much of the gift of making talk--a questionable accomplishment,
--and he never could approach his so-called inferiors but as his
equals, the fact being that in their presence he never felt any
difference.
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