a
natural formation, was the old castle, whose building dated many
centuries back.

It was not large nor grand, but it was strong and picturesque, and I used
to wish that we lived in it rather than in the smart, half-furnished
apartment in the new edifice, which had been hastily got ready for my
reception. Incongruous as the two parts were, they were joined into a
whole by means of intricate passages and unexpected doors, the exact
positions of which I never fully understood. M. de la Tourelle led me to
a suite of rooms set apart for me, and formally installed me in them, as
in a domain of which I was sovereign. He apologised for the hasty
preparation which was all he had been able to make for me, but promised,
before I asked, or even thought of complaining, that they should be made
as luxurious as heart could wish before many weeks had elapsed. But
when, in the gloom of an autumnal evening, I caught my own face and
figure reflected in all the mirrors, which showed only a mysterious
background in the dim light of the many candles which failed to
illuminate the great proportions of the half-furnished salon, I clung to
M. de la Tourelle, and begged to be taken to the rooms he had occupied
before his marriage, he seemed angry with me, although he affected to
laugh, and so decidedly put aside the notion of my having any other
rooms but these, that I trembled in silence at the fantastic figures and
shapes which my imagination called up as peopling the background of
those gloomy mirrors. There was my boudoir, a little less dreary--my
bedroom, with its grand and tarnished furniture, which I commonly made
into my sitting-room, locking up the various doors which led into the
boudoir, the salon, the passages--all but one, through which M. de la
Tourelle always entered from his own apartments in the older part of
the castle. But this preference of mine for occupying my bedroom annoyed
M. de la Tourelle, I am sure, though he did not care to express his
displeasure. He would always allure me back into the salon, which I
disliked more and more from its complete separation from the rest of the
building by the long passage into which all the doors of my apartment
opened. This passage was closed by heavy doors and portieres, through
which I could not hear a sound from the other parts of the house, and,
of course, the servants could not hear any movement or cry of mine
unless expressly summoned. To a girl brought up as I had been in a
h