can be seen here and there, gleaming in the distance.
My little park has been admirably laid out by the architect, who has
surrounded it by hedges, walls, or ha-has, according to the lie of the
land, so that no possible point of view may be lost.

A chalet has been built for me half-way up the hillside, with a charming
exposure, having the woods of the Ronce on either side, and in front a
grassy slope running down to the lake. Externally the chalet is an exact
copy of those which are so much admired by travelers on the road from
Sion to Brieg, and which fascinated me when I was returning from Italy.
The internal decorations will bear comparison with those of the most
celebrated buildings of the kind.

A hundred paces from this rustic dwelling stands a charming and
ornamental house, communicating with it by a subterranean passage.
This contains the kitchen, and other servants' rooms, stables, and
coach-houses. Of all this series of brick buildings, the facade alone
is seen, graceful in its simplicity, against a background of shrubbery.
Another building serves to lodge the gardeners and masks the entrance to
the orchards and kitchen-gardens.

The entrance gate to the property is so hidden in the wall dividing the
park from the wood as almost to defy detection. The plantations, already
well grown, will, in two or three years, completely hide the buildings,
so that, except in winter, when the trees are bare, no trace of
habitation will appear to the outside world, save only the smoke visible
from the neighboring hills.

The surroundings of my chalet have been modeled on what is called the
King's Garden at Versailles, but it has an outlook on my lakelet and
island. The hills on every side display their abundant foliage--those
splendid trees for which your new civil list has so well cared. My
gardeners have orders to cultivate new sweet-scented flowers to any
extent, and no others, so that our home will be a fragrant emerald. The
chalet, adorned with a wild vine which covers the roof, is literally
embedded in climbing plants of all kinds--hops, clematis, jasmine,
azalea, copaea. It will be a sharp eye which can descry our windows!

The chalet, my dear, is a good, solid house, with its heating system and
all the conveniences of modern architecture, which can raise a palace in
the compass of a hundred square feet. It contains a suite of rooms for
Gaston and another for me. The ground-floor is occupied by an ante-room,
a p