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 ch?teau 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. But at its base
the ivy grew thick and green, and here and there long streaks of it crept
up almost to the battlements, whilst in one place it had gone higher yet
and clothed one of the quaint old turrets. A moat there had once been, but
this was now filled up and arranged into little mounds that became flower-
beds in summer.
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