rk was only marked by a little improvement in the road; there was
neither lodge nor gate--no wall, no fence, no inclosure of any kind. The
trim culture, which in our country is so observable around the approach
of a house of some consequence, was here totally wanting; the avenue was
partly of gravel, partly of smooth turf; the brushwood of prickly holly
was let grow wild, and straggled in many places across the road; the
occasional views that opened seemed to have been made by accident,
not design; and all was rank vegetation and rich verdure, uncared
for--uncultivated, but like the children of the poor, seeming only
the healthier and more robust, because left to their own unchecked,
untutored impulses. The rabbits played about within a few paces of the
carriage tracks; the birds sat motionless on the trees as we passed,
while here and there through the foliage I could detect the gorgeous
colouring of some bright peacock's tail, as he rested on a bough and
held converse with his wilder brethren of the air, just as if the
remoteness of the spot and its seclusions led to intimacies which in
the ordinary routine of life had been impossible. At length the trees
receded farther and farther from the road, and a beautiful expanse
of waving lawn, dotted with sheep, stretched before the eye. In the
distance, too, I could perceive the chateau itself--a massive pile
in the shape of a letter L, bristling with chimneys, and pierced
with windows of every size and shape; clumps of flowering shrubs and
fruit-trees were planted about, and little beds of flowers spangled the
even turf like stars in the expanse of heaven. The Meuse wound round the
chateau on three sides, and perhaps thus saved it from being inflicted
by a ditch, for without water a Dutchman can no more exist than a
mackerel.

'Fine! isn't it?' said the Walloon, as he pointed with his finger to
the scene before me, and seemed to revel with delight in my look of
astonishment, while he plied his whip with renewed vigour, and soon drew
up at a wide flight of stone steps, where a row of orange-trees mounted
guard on each side, and filled the place with their fragrance.

A servant in the strange _melange_ of a livery, where the colours seemed
chosen from a bed of ranunculuses just near, came out to let down the
steps and usher me into the house. He informed me that the count had
given orders for my reception, but that he and all his friends were out
on horseback, and would not