It was a scene not to be forgotten, and Mr. Calvert stood gazing at it a
long while--at the softly playing fountains and the sombre bosquets and
the sculptured groups on every hand, showing faintly in the moonlight.
Fauns and satyrs peeped from the dense foliage. Here there showed a
Venus sculptured in some Ionian isle before ever Caesar and his cohorts
had pressed the soil of Gallia beneath their Roman sandals; there, a
Ganymede or a Ceres or a Minerva gleamed wan and beautiful; beneath an
ilex-tree a Bacchus leaned lightly on his marble thyrsus. It seemed as
if all the hierarchy of Olympus had descended to dwell in this royal
pleasure-ground at the bidding of the Roi Soleil.
Filled with the unrivalled beauty of the scene, Calvert at length turned
away and, passing down the great flight of marble steps leading to the
Orangery, slowly made his way into the park. The shadows were so dense
here that the statues looked ghostly in the dim light. Now and then he
could hear a low laugh and catch the flutter of a silken gown along the
shadowy walks, or the glint of a stray moonbeam on a silver sword.
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