might fancy myself ‘alone in the country’ and ‘sitting out reading,’ as if it were the Temple Walk at Eden Farm, or the lawn at Bower Hall, and altogether it was rather a pleasant hour; somewhat melancholy and exciting, but the birds made a nice ramageing sort of noise, and it was a beautiful mackerel sort of sky (like Juba’s sky), and the trees looked happy after the rain, and that dear Mrs. Hemans! I dote on that book. She just said the things I was thinking. I hardly know whether I was thinking the book or reading my thoughts; it all amalgamated so dreamily, and you and Eden Farm, and ‘youth and home, and that sweet time’ when we were all together and all happy, or unhappy, but still together. All this was floating about me, and I had a considerable mind to cry about it, but then two little paroquets began screaming in a tamarind-tree, and there was a strong perfume of exotic flowers—Indian white blossoms that were dropping on the grass—and then I saw eleven of those white eastern figures whom I had told to sit down, all squatting cross-legged most obediently, but with their black eyes fixed on me, and I scorned to waste any English tears on
