I had not walked many minutes, when a break in the wood gave me a view of the old mansion, and at once dispelled the illusion that was momentarily gaining upon me.

"They could not be the Callonbys." The house was old; and though it had once been a fine and handsome structure, exhibited now abundant traces of decay; the rich cornices which supported the roof had fallen in many places, and lay in fragments upon the terrace beneath; the portico of the door was half tumbling; and the architraves of the windows were broken and dismantled; the tall and once richly ornamented chimnies, were bereft of all their tracery, and stood bolt upright in all their nakedness above the high pitched roof.

A straggling "jet d'eau" was vigorously fighting its way amid a mass of creeping shrubs and luxuriant lichens that had grown around and above a richly carved fountain, and fell in a shower of sparkling dew upon the rank grass and tall weeds around.

The gentle murmur was the only sound that broke the stillness of the morning.
A few deities in lead and stone, mutilated and broken, stood like the Genii loci, guarding the desolation about them, where an old, superannuated peacock, with dropping, ragged tail was the only living thing to be seen.

All bespoke the wreck of what once was great and noble, and all plainly told me that such could not be the abode of the Callonbys.
Half doubting that the house were inhabited, and half scrupling if so to disturb its inmates from their rest, I sat down upon the terrace steps and fell into a fit of musing on the objects about.