Emily often lingered behind the party, to contemplate the distant
landscape, that closed a vista, or that gleamed beneath the dark foliage
of the foreground;--the spiral summits of the mountains, touched with
a purple tint, broken and steep above, but shelving gradually to their
base; the open valley, marked by no formal lines of art; and the tall
groves of cypress, pine and poplar, sometimes embellished by a ruined
villa, whose broken columns appeared between the branches of a pine,
that seemed to droop over their fall.
From other parts of the gardens, the character of the view was entirely
changed, and the fine solitary beauty of the landscape shifted for the
crowded features and varied colouring of inhabitation.
The sun was now gaining fast upon the sky, and the party quitted the
gardens, and retired to repose.