The numerous windows of the mansion commanded from all points the most magnificent prospect perhaps to be found in the three kingdoms.
The front windows facing the west looked over the grand slope of hills towards the edge of the cliff, and down upon the picturesque village at its foot and out upon the boundless ocean.
The back, or east windows, looked inland down into the deep valley and thick woods in which was hidden the old Abbey and the dark pool which lay before it.
The north windows looked out upon a rolling country of sterile heaths, dotted here and there with an oasis in the form of a farm or a hamlet.
And lastly, the south windows looked down over a smiling landscape of wooded hills surrounding a green valley, in the midst of which lay a lovely lake, upon whose farthest bank stood the elegant villa of Edenlawn, the seat of the Honorable Mrs. Elverton.
Admiral Sir Ira Brunton, the proprietor of the Anchorage, was originally a man of the people. By talent, courage, and good fortune, he had risen from the humblest post in the navy to his present high position.
He shared, however, that too common weakness of self-made men—an exaggerated respect for hereditary rank.
At the mature age of forty, when he had attained the rank of post-captain, and was flushed with his recent success, he attempted to marry into the peerage by proposing for the hand of the titled but dowerless daughter of an earl.
But failing in this enterprise, he wedded the only child and heiress of a wealthy city banker, who brought him as her portion a half million of pounds sterling, the beauty of a Venus, and the temper of a Xantippe.
With a part of the money he bought the magnificent estate of the Anchorage, and with the lady he lived a tempestuous life of twelve years, at the end of which she stormed herself to death, leaving him as a legacy one fair daughter, ten years of age, named after her mother, Anna Eleanora.