Having partaken of a slight refreshment, which the solitary domestic of the mansion set before him, Louis desired to be conducted to his bed-chamber. The man opened a door at the further extremity of the saloon, and the weary traveller followed into an apartment even more desolate than the one he had left. The dull cold light of a winter moon, shrouded in snow-clouds, gleamed through the mouldering remnants of what had once been damask curtains. These perishing relics of departed grandeur were all of furniture that presented itself to the eye of Louis, as he looked around for a place of rest. At last, in a distant recess deep in darkness, the candle he held in his hand shewed a mass of something heaped together. He approached, and found his own travelling palliasse on the floor, and his baggage so disposed, as to supply the place of chair and table. In recognizing even these poor necessaries to the repose he needed, Louis cast not a thought on the comforts he did not see, but thanking God for the good provided, stretched himself upon his hard bed, and soon was wrapped in balmy slumber. After a night of profound sleep, the bright smile of the awakened sun played on his eye-lids, and starting from his pallet, with his usual morning-spring of joy he hailed the brilliancy of the opened day. In an apartment close to his chamber he found that luxury of the continent (which even this deserted mansion retained), a bath, and having enjoyed its refreshment, with spirits ready for whatever task might be assigned him, he prepared to meet again his mysterious visitor. On re-entering the saloon, the gloominess which had appalled him the preceding evening was no longer there; it had disappeared before the chaser of shadows, and he advanced to a window to see what evidence of neighbourhood would present itself without. A view, as novel as it was gay and picturesque, burst upon his sight. Under the windows stretched a high balustraded terrace, with broad stone-steps leading down to a garden intersected with parterres and long vistas foliaged with glittering icicles. The ground was white with snow, which had been falling all night, and nothing having tracked the deserted walks, it lay in shining smoothness as far as the low wall which bounded the garden. Beyond the parapet, trees of loftier growth stretched their ample arms over a plain that banked the mighty waters of the Danube, now arrested by the mightier hand of winter into a vast substantial causeway.