Three years ago, a low two-storied building, in colour mainly white, with wide verandahs embowered in creepers, stood out against the sky beyond the walnut tree. The house faced south, on both sides and behind it were open spaces flanked by greenhouses and walled gardens, through which there ran an avenue of Italian poplars, linking the village with a private chapel; in front, the “sleeping waters” spread out in their full glory, a broad and placid surface fringed with willows, which leaned away from the supporting banks as though they sought their own reflection. Between the waters and the house a palace stood, empty but not a ruin, a monumental relic of a bygone reign and period; standing four square, crowned and protected by a roof of slate. Such buildings can be seen in Venice and Ragusa, with fluted columns poised on balustrades of rich and fanciful design, composing graceful loggias. More than two centuries have passed since Bassarab Brancovan, a ruling prince, first brought Italian craftsmen to Wallachia. The tokens of these exiles’ art are numerous, but nowhere do they find such perfect and complete expression as in this palace, built for the prince himself, whose pale, brick walls, with fretted cornices and sculptured Gothic windows, are mirrored in a glassy surface and framed by willow trees. Within the dwelling-house, the rooms looked larger than they were, an optical illusion being produced by shadows on floor and ceiling and corners obscured in gloom. The curtains hung upon the walls like draperies, and chairs and tables were disposed in groups, with an unerring instinct for achieving harmony between utility and taste. Flowers were never absent from these rooms, and made the house a floral temple, whose forecourt was alternately the greenhouse and the garden, the former produced in January what the latter gave in June. Such was the shrine--the presiding Deity was a lady still young in years, but learned in history and the arts, beyond the compass of most men. With her there lived her daughter and an English governess, a peacock in the garden and a mouse-coloured Persian cat. Here, men whose lives were darkened by suspicion found a rare atmosphere, where mystery was physical, and did not hide the truth; here, could be learned the story of a race from one whose memory was saturated with traditions, who faced the future calmly, knowing its perils, sustained by hope and faith; here could be heard the twin voices of sanity and reason, expounding not what Rumania was supposed to think, but what Rumania thought.