e
a peculiar character to this lone retreat. Art had harmonized her
constructions with the picturesque effects of nature. Human passions
seemed to die at the feet of those great trees, which guarded this
asylum from the tumult of the world as they shaded it from the fires of
the sun.

"How desolate!" thought Monsieur d'Albon, observing the sombre
expression which the ancient building gave to the landscape, gloomy as
though a curse were on it. It seemed a fatal spot deserted by man. Ivy
had stretched its tortuous muscles, covered by its rich green mantle,
everywhere. Brown or green, red or yellow mosses and lichen spread their
romantic tints on trees and seats and roofs and stones. The crumbling
window-casings were hollowed by rain, defaced by time; the balconies
were broken, the terraces demolished. Some of the outside shutters hung
from a single hinge. The rotten doors seemed quite unable to resist an
assailant. Covered with shining tufts of mistletoe, the branches of the
neglected fruit-trees gave no sign of fruit. Grass grew in the paths.
Such ruin and desolation cast a weird poesy on the scene, filling the
souls of the spectators with dreamy thoughts. A poet would have stood
there long, plunged in a melancholy reverie, admiring this disorder
so full of harmony, this destruction which was not without its grace.
Suddenly, the brown tiles shone, the mosses glittered, fantastic shadows
danced upon the meadows and beneath the trees; fading colors revived;
striking contrasts developed, the foliage of the trees and shrubs
defined itself more clearly in the light. Then--the light went out. The
landscape seemed to have spoken, and now was silent, returning to its
gloom, or rather to the soft sad tones of an autumnal twilight.

"It is the palace of the Sleeping Beauty," said the marquis, beginning
to view the house with the eyes of a land owner. "I wonder to whom it
belongs! He must be a stupid fellow not to live in such an exquisite
spot."

At that instant a woman sprang from beneath a chestnut-tree standing to
the right of the gate, and, without making any noise, passed before the
marquis as rapidly as the shadow of a cloud. This vision made him mute
with surprise.

"Why, Albon, what's the matter?" asked the colonel.

"I am rubbing my eyes to know if I am asleep or awake," replied the
marquis, with his face close to the iron rails as he tried to get
another sight of the phantom.

"She must be beneath that fig-tree,"