he gentleman whose taste had presided over the building of the
mansion, had travelled all over Europe, and passed several years in the
East. He had brought home with him the richest and rarest models of
Eastern architecture, and fashioned his own mansion after them. Ernest
had not purchased it, for the owner was not willing to sell; he was
anxious, however, to secure occupants who would appreciate its elegance,
and guard it from injury.

Ah! little did I think when eating my bread and milk from the china bowl
bordered by flowers, when a silver spoon seemed something grand and
massy in the midst of general poverty, that I should ever be the
mistress of such a magnificent mansion. I had thought Grandison Place
luxuriously elegant; but what was it compared to this? How shall I begin
to describe it? or shall I describe it at all? I always like myself to
know how to localize a friend, to know their surroundings and realities,
and all that fills up the picture of their life. A friend! Have I made
friends of my readers? I trust there are some who have followed the
history of Gabriella Lynn with sufficient interest, to wish to learn
something of her experience of the married life.

Come, then, with me, and I will devote this chapter to a palace, which
might indeed fulfil the prayers of the most princely love.

This beautiful apartment, adorned with paintings and statues of the most
exquisite workmanship, is a reception room, from which you enter the
parlor and find yourself winding through fluted pillars of ingrained
marble, from the centre of which curtains of blue and silver, sweeping
back and wreathing the columns, form an arch beneath which queens might
be proud to walk. The walls are glittering with silver and blue, and all
the decorations of the apartment exhibit the same beautiful union. The
ceiling above is painted in fresco, where cherubs, lovely as the dream
of love, spread their wings of silvery tinted azure and draw their fairy
bows.

Passing through this glittering colonnade into a kind of airy room, you
pause on the threshold, imagining yourself in a fairy grotto. We will
suppose it moonlight; for it was by moonlight I first beheld this
enchanting scene. We arrived at night, and Ernest conducted me himself
through a home which appeared to me more like a dream of the imagination
than a creation of man. I saw that _he_ was surprised; that he was
unprepared for such elaborate splendor. He had told his friend to sp