As we went acrost a corner of this immense door-yard, through the most beautiful pieces of woodland, and the verdant slopes covered with velvety sward, great, beautiful pheasants and herds of deer would look round at us and then walk off, not a mite afraid, fearless as they will be if they’re used well. Anon we would ketch a glimpse of some enchantin’ vista, with herds of contented cattle, makin’ picters of themselves aginst the background of green grass and noble trees centuries old.
From a little hill top we could see twelve milds in every direction, and not a foot of land that this man didn’t own.
Twelve milds! the idee! It seems more’n he ort to have on his mind.
Anon we reached a beautiful stun bridge, designed by Michael Angelo, and crossin’ the little river, went up to the great iron and gilt entrance gates.
Martin sent his card in.
Martin sent his card in to somebody that takes care of the premises, I guess (and how he dast to ask any favors of this gorgeous-dressed creeter in knee-breeches, I d’no, but he did, bold as brass), and word come back that we could look over the place, and one of the hired men wuz sent to go with us and show us round. It wuz well he come; we should have got lost, sure as the world. But lost in sech a place—sech a place! Why, I’d read the Arabian Nights quite a good deal, and a considerable number of fairy stories about enchanted castles, and sech. But never did I ever hear, in a book, or out on’t, of sech magnificence as I see here.
First we went through a great courtyard into the splendid entrance hall, seventy feet long if it wuz a inch; the wall and ceilin’s ornamented with frescoes, all representin’ the life and death of Cæsar. We went up a majestic staircase, with all the richly ornamented columns and statutes it needed for its comfort, and more, too, it seemed, though they wuz beautiful beyend tellin’; and here we went into the State Apartments of the house.
I spoze they are called State Apartments because in every room there’s enough of beauty and grandeur to supply a hull State, if it wuz scattered even, and I don’t mean Rhode Island either, but New York and Maine and sech sizable ones.
Why, every one of these lofty ceilin’s is painted with picters handsome enough for the very handsomest handkerchief pin, if they wuz the right size. The hired man told us what some of the picters represented—Aurora (and, oh, how beautiful Aurora wuz!), and one wuz the “Judgment of Paris.”