d with a sort of dome, soldered to the roof.
Only, in consequence of some singular fancy, in every one of the leaden
plates, which concealed the four sides of the belvedere, corresponding
to the cardinal points, seven little round holes had been bored in
the form of a cross, and were easily distinguishable from the outside.
Everywhere else the plates of lead were completely unpierced. Thanks
to these precautions, and to the substantial structure of the
building, nothing but a few outward repairs had been necessary; and the
apartments, entirely removed from the influence of the external air, no
doubt remained, during a century and a half, exactly in the same state
as at the time of their being shut up. The aspect of walls in crevices,
of broken, worm-eaten shutters, of a roof half fallen in, and windows
covered with wall-flowers, would perhaps have been less sad than the
appearance of this stone house, plated with iron and lead, and preserved
like a mausoleum. The garden, completely deserted, and only regularly
visited once a week by Samuel, presented to the view, particularly in
summer, an incredible confusion of parasites and brambles. The trees,
left to themselves, had shot forth and mingled their branches in all
directions; some straggling vines, reproduced from offshoots, had
crept along the ground to the foot of the trees, and, climbing up their
trunks, had twined themselves about them, and encircled their highest
branches with their inextricable net. You could only pass through this
virgin forest by following the path made by the guardian, to go from the
grating to the house, the approaches to which were a little sloped to
let the water run off, and carefully paved to the width of about ten
feet. Another narrow path which extended all around the enclosure, was
every night perambulated by two or three Pyrenees dogs--a faithful race,
which had been perpetuated in the house during a century and a half.
Such was the habitation destined for the meeting of the descendants of
the family of Rennepont. The night which separated the 12th from the
13th day of February was near its close. A calm had succeeded the storm,
and the rain had ceased; the sky was clear and full of stars; the moon,
on its decline, shone with a mild lustre, and threw a melancholy light
over that deserted, silent house, whose threshold for so many years no
human footstep had crossed.

A bright gleam of light, issuing from one of the windows of the
guar