A Little Gipsy Lass by Gordon Stables

Antony Blake -- or Frank Antony Blake, to give him the benefit of his full tally -- was the only son and heir-apparent of Squire Blake of Manby Hall, a fine old mansion away down in Devonshire; thousands of acres of land -- no one seemed to know how many -- rolling fields of meadow-lands divided by hedgerows and waving grain, woods and wolds, lakes and streams, and an upland of heath and fern that lost itself far away on the nor'-western horizon.

The mansion itself, situated on a green eminence in the midst of the well-treed old park, was one of the stately homes of England; and though antique enough to be almost grim -- as if holding in its dark interior the secrets of a gloomy or mayhap tragic past -- it was cheerful enough in summer or winter; and from its big lodge-gates, all along its gravelled avenues, the wheel-marks bore evidence that Manby Hall was by no means deserted nor the squire very much of a recluse.