As soon as possible after learning these particulars, the sculptor,
together with a sad and tremulous companion, sought Elliston at his
own house. It was a large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters
and a balcony, and was divided from one of the principal streets by
a terrace of three elevations, which was ascended by successive
flights of stone steps. Some immense old elms almost concealed the
front of the mansion. This spacious and once magnificent
family-residence was built by a grandee of the race, early in the past
century; at which epoch, land being of small comparative value, the
garden and other grounds had formed quite an extensive domain.
Although a portion of the ancestral heritage had been alienated, there
was still a shadowy enclosure in the rear of the mansion, where a
student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken heart, might lie all day
upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that
a city had grown up around him.
Into this retirement, the sculptor and his companion were ushered
by Scipio, the old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grew almost
sunny with intelligence and joy, as he paid his humble greetings to
one of the two visitors.
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