He is in the midst of splendid mountain scenery--which leads
us to wonder at which English University he was studying--and descends
through woody ravines and cliffs that overhang torrents, till he
suddenly comes in sight of a "little harmonic building that had every
charm and proportion architecture could give it." Finding one of the
garden doors open, and being very hungry, the adventurous Buncle
strolls in, and finds himself in "a grotto or shell-house, in which a
politeness of fancy had produced and blended the greatest beauties of
nature and decoration." (There are more grottoes in the pages of Amory
than exist in the whole of the British Islands.) This shell-house
opened into a library, and in the library a beauteous object was
sitting and reading. She was studying a Hebrew Bible, and making
philological notes on a small desk. She raised her eyes and approached
the stranger, "to know who I wanted" (for Buncle's style, though
picturesque, is not always grammatically irreproachable.)
Before he could answer, a venerable gentleman was at his side, to whom
the young sportsman confessed that he was dying of hunger and had
lost his way. Mr. Noel, a patriarchal widower of vast wealth, was
inhabiting this mansion in the sole company of his only daughter, the
lovely being just referred to.
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