The Old Stanfield House by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

CALISTA STANFIELD stood at the gate of the old Stanfield place one morning in the latter end of May, looking abroad over the fields. The house stood on a little rise of ground such as in that part of the world is dignified by the name of a hill. The foreground of the picture on which she was looking was not very cheerful in itself, being neither more nor less than an old family burying-ground, very full of gravestones, and with one tall monument towering over all. Now an old graveyard need not be a melancholy sight, provided that the grass be kept green, the stones whole, and the enclosure free from ugly weeds. That on which Calista was looking bore traces of utter neglect. Beyond the graveyard spread fenced fields, some in pasture, others in the carefully-marked squares which showed that they were meant for sweet potatoes, or were tinted with the pale green blades of the springing corn. Low-growing oaks, with here and there a large tree, closed is the prospect.

Calista looked at the melancholy graveyard, and then turned and looked at the house behind her-the old Stanfield place. The one prospect was not more cheering than the other. The mansion had been a fine one, built of small bricks brought from Europe, and with much ornamental woodwork about it. It stood on a high stone basement, and had a flight of solid gray marble steps rising from each side to a wide porch with brick pillars, and quaint carving about the gable; but the woodwork was gray for want of paint, and in some places falling for want of a timely nail; the steps had sunk away, leaving a yawning chasm between themselves and the floor of the porch; most of the shutters-solid wooden shutters such as people affect in that part of the world-were closed, and others hung by only one hinge. There had been a somewhat pretentious garden at one side of the house, with ornamental trellis-work and a summer-house once covered with climbing roses; but the trellis leaned this way and that, the summer-house had partly fallen in, and the beds were overgrown with grass and weeds.