chant, for such it was, seemed to be an endeavour to dissuade us from our purpose of lodging there, though I could not well comprehend why. Leaving, then, the good man to replace his bonnet, and Mademoiselle to explain to him something or another, we proceeded to examine the interior, in order to select our rooms. The chateau had been uninhabited for many years, and, though not ruinous, was in a very dilapidated state. Nothing could be more chillingly repulsive than the vast flagged hall into which we first entered. Several doors led from this, right and left, into suites of apartments, and one, low and arched, opposite the entrance, opened on a long bridge leading over the moat to the garden and pleasure-grounds, &c. This hall was totally devoid of furniture. We found the rooms on the ground-floor large, lofty, and of good proportions, but only feebly illuminated by high windows sunk deep in the wall, and of which the heavy stone mullions intercepted nearly as much light as entered between them. The walls were hung with tapestry so ancient and so much decayed that the figures, landscapes, &c., by which it had once been ornamented, were nearly obliterated. In some rooms old family portraits occupied the places of the wainscot panels, particularly over the doors. The only furniture in any of them was a few ponderous tables, and some high-backed equally ponderous chairs, having both seats and backs stuffed and covered with tapestry. On the floor above, a large corridor or hall--for it was directly over and corresponded in size with the one below--was hung round with full-length portraits of the Van Volden family (to whom the domain belonged), male and female. Some of these were common enough; but there were others evidently the production of no ordinary pencil--one in particular, a lady habited in a costume such as prevailed about our Charles II.’s time--a splendidly beautiful creature of some two or three and twenty years of age, painted in a most masterly style; and, from being in a much more magnificent frame than any of the others, apparently a person of higher consideration. “_Mon-père-dit_” (as we had christened the gardener’s pallid daughter), who accompanied us through the rooms, could give no information respecting this fair dame--all she knew was that she had been a person of very high rank, and, she believed, an ancestress of Madame la Baronne, the present proprietress. By the way, Madame Van Volden, Baronne Von Lombeke et Strytem (such were her titles), was at this time residing in Brussels, where she had a grand mansion--Rue de Dominicans. She possessed also another estate at or near Vilvorde, between which and her town residence she divided her time, so that her Strytem tenants saw her very rarely. Her son, being _maire_ of the commune, paid an occasional visit to the village, but then always put up at the farmhouse, so that the chateau had long been locked up and quite neglected. To return from this digression.