Seeing me in the company of Andrea de Mancini he might--who could say ?--even deem me one of those parasites who cling to young men of fortune so that they may live at their expense.

That the daughter would have formed such a conceit of me I was assured; it but remained to see with what countenance the father would greet me.
From such speculations I was at length aroused by our arrival at the gates of the Canaples park.

Seeing them wide open, we rode between the two massive columns of granite (each surmounted by a couchant lion holding the escutcheon of the Canaples) and proceeded at an ambling pace up the avenue.

Through the naked trees the chateau became discernible--a brave old castle that once had been the stronghold of a feudal race long dead.

Grey it was, and attuned, that day, to the rest of the grey landscape.