the past century, ornamented simply by a gable and a bull's-eye, but
flanked by a lordly dovecote.

It derived a certain air of dignity from two small terraces, one above
the other, in front of it, while the triple flight of steps was supported
by balusters of granite. Two animals, which had once, perhaps, resembled
lions, were placed one upon each side of the balustrade at the platform
of the highest terrace; and they had been staring there for more than a
hundred and fifty years. Behind the house stretched the garden; and in
its midst, mounted on a stone arch, stood a dismal sun-dial with hearts
and spades painted between its figures; while the trees around it were
trimmed into the shapes of confessionals and chess-pawns. To the right, a
labyrinth of young trees, similarly clipped in the fashion of the time,
led by a thousand devious turns to a mysterious valley, where one heard
continually a low, sad murmur. This proceeded from a nymph in
terra-cotta, from whose urn dripped, day and night, a thin rill of water
into a small fishpond, bordered by grand old poplars, whose shadows threw
upon its surface, even at mid-day, the blackness of Acheron.

Camors's first reflection at viewing this prospect was an exceedingly
painful one; and the second was even more so.

At another time he would doubtless have taken an interest in searching
through these souvenirs of the past for traces of an infant nurtured
there, who had a mother, and who had perhaps loved these old relics. But
his system did not admit of sentiment, so he crushed the ideas that
crowded to his mind, and, after a rapid glance around him, called for his
dinner.

The old steward and his wife--who for thirty years had been the sole
inhabitants of Reuilly--had been informed of his coming. They had spent
the day in cleaning and airing the house; an operation which added to the
discomfort they sought to remove, and irritated the old residents of the
walls, while it disturbed the sleep of hoary spiders in their dusty webs.
A mixed odor of the cellar, of the sepulchre, and of an old coach, struck
Camors when he penetrated into the principal room, where his dinner was
to be served.

Taking up one or two flickering candles, the like of which he had never
seen before, Camors proceeded to inspect the quaint portraits of his
ancestors, who seemed to stare at him in great surprise from their
cracked canvases. They were a dilapidated set of old nobles, one having
lost a no