Determined to know the worst, they made the circuit of the house and of
the whole estate.
"Can it ever be restored?" Elsie asked at length, amid her tears.
"The house may be rebuilt in a few months, and fields and gardens cleared
of weeds, and made to resume something of the old look," Mr. Dinsmore
answered; "but the trees were the growth of years, and this generation
will not see their places filled with their like."
They pursued their way to Ion in almost unbroken silence. Here the fields
presented the same appearance of neglect; lawn and gardens were a wild,
but scarcely a tree had fallen, and though the house had been pillaged,
furniture destroyed, windows broken, and floors torn up, a few rooms were
still habitable; and here they found several of the house-servants, who
hailed their coming with demonstrations of delight.
They had lived on the products of the orchard and grapery, and by
cultivating a small patch of ground and keeping a few fowls.
Elsie assumed an air of cheerfulness, for her husband's sake; rejoiced
that the trees had been spared, that the family burial-place had escaped
desecration, and talked gayly of the pleasure of repairing damages, and
making improvements till Ion should not have a rival for beauty the
country round.
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