Lady Blanche, it being not yet dark, took this opportunity of exploring
new scenes, and, leaving the parlour, she passed from the hall into
a wide gallery, whose walls were decorated by marble pilasters, which
supported an arched roof, composed of a rich mosaic work. Through a
distant window, that seemed to terminate the gallery, were seen the
purple clouds of evening and a landscape, whose features, thinly veiled
in twilight, no longer appeared distinctly, but, blended into one grand
mass, stretched to the horizon, coloured only with a tint of solemn
grey.
The gallery terminated in a saloon, to which the window she had seen
through an open door, belonged; but the increasing dusk permitted her
only an imperfect view of this apartment, which seemed to be magnificent
and of modern architecture; though it had been either suffered to fall
into decay, or had never been properly finished. The windows, which were
numerous and large, descended low, and afforded a very extensive, and
what Blanche's fancy represented to be, a very lovely prospect; and
she stood for some time, surveying the grey obscurity and depicturing
imaginary woods and mountains, vallies and rivers, on this scene of
night; her solemn sensations rather assisted, than interrupted, by the
distant bark of a watch-dog, and by the breeze, as it trembled upon the
light foliage of the shrubs.
Now and then, appeared for a moment, among
the woods, a cottage light; and, at length, was heard, afar off, the
evening bell of a convent, dying on the air. When she withdrew her
thoughts from these subjects of fanciful delight, the gloom and silence
of the saloon somewhat awed her; and, having sought the door of the
gallery, and pursued, for a considerable time, a dark passage, she came
to a hall, but one totally different from that she had formerly seen.
By the twilight, admitted through an open portico, she could just
distinguish this apartment to be of very light and airy architecture,
and that it was paved with white marble, pillars of which supported the
roof, that rose into arches built in the Moorish style. While Blanche
stood on the steps of this portico, the moon rose over the sea, and
gradually disclosed, in partial light, the beauties of the eminence, on
which she stood, whence a lawn, now rude and overgrown with high grass,
sloped to the woods, that, almost surrounding the chateau, extended in a
grand sweep down the southern sides of the promontory to the very margin
of the ocean. Beyond the woods, on the north-side, appeared a long tract
of the plains of Languedoc; and, to the east, the landscape she had
before dimly seen, with the towers of a monastery, illumined by the
moon, rising over dark groves.