Also, the Hartleys were a delightful family to visit. There is quite as much hospitality in knowing when to leave guests to themselves as there is in continually entertaining them.
And while the Hartleys planned many pleasures for Patty, yet there were also hours in the morning or early afternoon, when she was free to follow her own sweet will.
Sometimes she would roam around the historic old house, pausing here and there in some of the silent, unused rooms, to imagine romances of days gone by.
Sometimes she would stroll out-of-doors, through the orchards and woods, by ravines and brooks, always discovering some new and beautiful vista or bit of scenery.
And often she would spend a morning, lying in a hammock beneath the old trees, reading a book, or merely day-dreaming, as she watched the sunlight play hide-and-seek among the leaves above her head.
One morning, after she had been at Cromarty Manor for about a week, Patty betook herself to her favourite hammock, carrying with her a book of Fairy Tales, for which she had never outgrown her childish fondness.
But the book remained unopened, for Patty’s mind was full of busy thoughts.
She looked around at the beautiful landscape which, as far as the eye could reach included only the land belonging to the Cromarty estate. There were more than a thousand acres in all, much of which was cultivated ground, and the rest woodland or rolling meadows. Patty looked at the dark woods in the distance; the orchards nearer by; and, in her immediate vicinity, the beautiful gardens and terraces.
The latter, of which there were two, known as the Upper and Lower Terrace, were two hundred feet long and were separated by a sloping bank of green lawn, dotted with round flower beds.