My pleasure would indeed have been greater had I been sometimes
allowed to wander in a park or wilderness alone; but to appear as a
friend of Eugenio was an honour not to be enjoyed without some
inconveniencies: so much was every one solicitous for my regard, that I
could seldom escape to solitude, or steal a moment from the emulation of
complaisance, and the vigilance of officiousness.
In these rambles of good neighbourhood, we frequently passed by a house
of unusual magnificence. While I had my curiosity yet distracted among
many novelties, it did not much attract my observation; but in a short
time I could not forbear surveying it with particular notice; for the
length of the wall which inclosed the gardens, the disposition of the
shades that waved over it, and the canals of which I could obtain some
glimpses through the trees from our own windows, gave me reason to
expect more grandeur and beauty than I had yet seen in that province. I
therefore inquired, as we rode by it, why we never, amongst our
excursions, spent an hour where there was such an appearance of
splendour and affluence? Eugenio told me that the seat which I so much
admired, was commonly called in the country the _haunted house_, and
that no visits were paid there by any of the gentlemen whom I had yet
seen.
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