had at its foot a large barn, where the domestic animals found ample accommodations and plentiful supplies. Its yard communicated by a large gate with an area in the rear of the mansion, which was surrounded by a little village of offices. Among them were the carriage-house, the wood-house, whose ranges of sawed hickory were disposed with geometrical precision; the gardener's tool-house, where every thing had a place, and was in it; the distillery, where the richer herbs from the dispensary, and the fragrant petals of the damask-rose yielded their essence for health or luxury; and the poultry-house, with its glass windows and varied compartments, where the brooding mothers and their hopeful offspring found systematic lodgment and a large prosperity.
I shall hope to be forgiven for this minute description, which may seem dry and prosaic, but in my heart touches chords that ring out like pleasant melodies. Every feature of our birthplace is wont to become beautified by time; and I am the more desirous to preserve a transcript of mine as it was, because the moods and tenses of modern days are prone to modify or obliterate the idioms that memory had consecrated.
This edifice and estate, comprehending a farm in a neighboring village, with other portions of land in the vicinity, appertained to the name of Lathrop, one of the most ancient and meritorious of the aristocratic families of Norwich. It was owned by the widow of
