Slowly and gently, as if by the passage of a panoramic picture, the villa was disclosed to our view; and my companions hailed its appearance with exclamations of delight. Visions of a happy meeting with old dear friends, of sumptuous hospitality, of free rural enjoyments, of many pleasurable incidents, were before the minds of both; and as for Luis, the sight of that pretty homestead could not fail to call up emotions of a still more thrilling kind.
Though I had myself seen the villa before, and from the water, it was a new sight to both my friends. It was, in fact, a new house, and had been built by Dardonville on retiring from business. On Luis’s last visit to Saint Louis, the family was residing in the city. It was shortly after, that they had removed to the charming abode on the bluff.
My friends were enthusiastic in their praises of the pretty mansion. They admired its style of architecture, its smooth sloping lawn, its shrubberies; in short, both were in the mood for admiring.
As the boat arrived directly in front of it, and the house came fully into view, it did not strike me as presenting so hospitable an appearance: in fact, an observer, knowing nothing of its inmates, would have given it a character altogether different. The front door was shut close; and so, too, were the Venetian shutters, every one of them. Even the gate of the verandah railings appeared to be latched and locked. There was no life, human or animal, stirring about the place; not a creature to be seen. There was no smoke issuing from the chimneys, not a film. The place had the appearance of being uninhabited, deserted!
My companions could not help noticing this, though without having any suspicion that the house might be empty.
Why are the windows closed? and on such a beautiful morning?
I could only make answer to this pertinent query, by observing that the house faced eastward; and the sun might be too strong at that hour.
“Parbleu!” exclaimed Adele, “I feel cold enough; you see, I shiver? For my part, I should open every blind, and admit all the sun I could get. I shall do so, as soon as we get there.”
“But la!” continued she, after a pause, “surely they expect us? and by the Sultana, too? You would think some one would be on the look out? They must certainly hear the blowing of our grand boat? And yet no one appears—not even a face at the windows! Come, M’amselle Olympe, this is barely kind of you.”
Adele endeavoured to disfigure her beautiful countenance with a slight grimace, expressive of chagrin; but the laugh that followed showed how little she was in earnest.