I then unfolded my plan. It was my desire to take a house in Nerac, not at too great a distance from the house of Doctor Louis, in which I could reside, with two or three servants to attend to it and me. I had seen such a house on the borders of a forest about a mile and a half away, which appeared to me to have been long uninhabited. The grounds in which it was built and the gardens by which it was surrounded had been neglected by man, but there was much wild beauty in them, and a little care and attention would soon bring them into order. The place had attracted me, and I had spent an hour in wandering through the grounds, and had attempted, also, to enter the house to examine it, but the doors were locked. Attached to the house was a cottage, which I supposed had been the gardener's cottage. This little dwelling was literally imbedded in climbing wild roses, which had grown in wonderful luxuriance upon all its walls. There were stables also, which I judged would afford accommodation for half a dozen horses. In some respects the estate reminded me of Rosemullion, which, considering the kind of life I had passed therein, might not have been considered an attraction; nevertheless, I found myself insensibly drawn towards it. Its points of resemblance were that the house stood alone, and could not be overlooked; that it was at some distance from other habitations; and that it was on the borders of a wood. In one respect it was pleasantly dissimilar. No stone walls surrounded it; there was not even a fence; the fine trees around it had been so arranged by man or nature as to form an intelligible barrier, which, however, any person was at liberty to pass. The gloom of Rosemullion did not, therefore, pervade it, and, living there, I should not feel as if I were cut off from communion with my fellows.