was completed,
the noble owner found that he had no rooms to live in; and that, on
this account, when disposed to study his own comfort, he resided in
a house of perhaps one-tenth the size, built by his grandfather in
another county.

Gatherum Castle would probably be called Italian in its style of
architecture; though it may, I think, be doubted whether any such
edifice, or anything like it, was ever seen in any part of Italy.
It was a vast edifice; irregular in height--or it appeared to be
so--having long wings on each side too high to be passed over by the
eye as mere adjuncts to the mansion, and a portico so large as to
make the house behind it look like another building of a greater
altitude. This portico was supported by Ionic columns, and was in
itself doubtless a beautiful structure. It was approached by a
flight of steps, very broad and very grand; but, as an approach by a
flight of steps hardly suits an Englishman's house, to the immediate
entrance of which it is necessary that his carriage should drive,
there was another front door in one of the wings which was commonly
used. A carriage, however, could on very stupendously grand
occasions--the visits, for instance, of queens and kings, and royal
dukes--be brought up under the portico; as the steps had been so
constructed as to admit of a road, with a rather stiff ascent, being
made close in front of the wing up into the very porch.

Opening from the porch was the grand hall, which extended up to the
top of the house. It was magnificent, indeed; being decorated with
many-coloured marbles, and hung round with various trophies of the
house of Omnium; banners were there, and armour; the sculptured busts
of many noble progenitors; full-length figures in marble of those
who had been especially prominent; and every monument of glory that
wealth, long years, and great achievements could bring together. If
only a man could but live in his hall and be for ever happy there!
But the Duke of Omnium could not live happily in his hall; and the
fact was, that the architect, in contriving this magnificent entrance
for his own honour and fame, had destroyed the duke's house as
regards most of the ordinary purposes of residence.

Nevertheless, Gatherum Castle is a very noble pile; and, standing as
it does on an eminence, has a very fine effect when seen from many a
distant knoll and verdant-wooded hill.

At seven o'clock Mr de Courcy and his friends got down from their
dr