One great feature was
the Ladies' Garden, a spot apart, a great square garden surrounded with
a laurel wall, eight feet high, containing a rose garden, where the
choicest specimens grew and flourished, while in the centre there was a
circular fish-pond with a fountain. There was a Lavender Walk too,
another feature of the grounds at Rood Hall, an avenue of tall lavender
bushes, much affected by the stately dames of old.
Modern manners preferred the river terrace, as a pleasant place on which
to loiter after dinner, to watch the boats flashing by in the evening
light, or the sun going down behind a fringe of willows on the opposite
bank. This Italian terrace, with its statues, and carved vases filled
with roses, fuchsias, and geraniums, was the great point of rendezvous
at Rood Hall--an ideal spot whereon to linger in the deepening twilight,
from which to gaze upon the moonlit river later on in the night.
The windows of the drawing-room, and music-room, and ballroom opened on
to this terrace, and the royal wing--the tower-shaped wing now devoted
to Lady Lesbia, looked upon the terrace and the river.
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