Is There a Place Like Home?

My father was always scrupulous in exacting our holidays and having us around him on family festivals. We had now come in full view of the old family mansion, partly thrown in deep shadow and partly lit up by the cold moonshine. It was an irregular building of some magnitude and seemed to be the architecture of different periods. One wing was evidently very ancient with heavy stone shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy. The little dogs and all, tray, blanch and sweetheart, see they bark at me, cried brace bridge, laughing.