Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/166

Rh no impostor could picture them—and when I have done I shall allow you to judge."

And there in that crowded little southern opera-house on that hot February night, the actor who followed the trained seals proceeded to go back. With unfaltering touch he sketched for his audience the great stone country seat called Rakedale Hall, where for centuries the Harrowbys had dwelt. It was as though he took his audience there to visit—through the massive iron gates up the broad avenue bordered with limes, until the high chimneys, the pointed gables, the mullioned windows, and the walls half hidden by ivy, creeping roses and honeysuckles were revealed to them. He took them through the house to the servants' quarters—which he called "the offices"—out into the kitchen gardens, thence to the paved quadrangle of the stables with its arched gateway and the chiming clock above. Tennis-courts, grape-houses, conservatories, they visited breathlessly; they saw over the brow of the hill the low square tower of the old church and the chimneys of the vicar's modest house.