of the grove. Birds of the most splendid plumage and the most exquisite melody-the goldfinch, the oriole, the red bird, the paroquet, the nightingale, swallow, and innumerable others, shelter here, and their songs fill the air with music. No artificial walk disfigures the sward. The green and velvety turf affords the softest, coolest footing. Rustic seats of twisted bow-wood are under the trees; here and there fountains of crystal water leap, sparkle, and fall, ever playing silvery accompaniments to the song of birds; statues of Diana, Pan, and the woodnymphs, peopled the grove. Its shades are the delightful resort of the Sutherlands and their friends, to enjoy the freshness and brilliancy of the morning, to find shelter from the burning rays of the sun at noon, or to luxuriate in the delicious breeze of the evening. This Arcadian grove, as has been said, surrounded the house on three sides-north, west, and south. The east is the front of the house towards the river. The view here is open, and the most beautiful, charming, and variegated, to be imagined. From the colonnaded verandah a flight of broad marble steps lead to a terrace carpeted with grass, and planted with rose-bushes-the Damascus, the Provence, the scarlet, the white, the multiflora, the moss rose; daily, monthly, and perpetual roses; "roseseverywhere roses"-such a luxuriant exuberance of roses upon this velvety terrace. The rose terrace is divided from the lawn by a treillage of the most delicate and elaborate trellis-work; and this also is wreathed and festooned by running rose vines. Below this spreads the lawn on every side, not level, but gently waving, and covered with grass as soft, as smooth, and as downy as velvet; and everywhere the eye roves with pleasure over a turf of brilliant intense green, except where it is variegated with the floral mosaic work of gay parterres, or trellised arbours, or reservoirs, or single magnificent forest trees left standing in honour of their monarchal grandeur. The parterres are rich, beautiful, and fragrant beyond description; there our hot-house plants bloom in the open air; and there our common garden flowersviolets, lilies, roses, myrtles, irises, and innumerable others-flourish with surpassing luxuriance. arbours, of delicate trellis-work and elegant form, are shaded and adorned with running vines of rich Armenean and cape jessamine, honeysuckles, and woodbine. The reservoirs contain gold fish, and other ornamental specimens of the piscatorial kingdom. The This extensive and beautiful lawn is surrounded by an iron open-work fencing, very light and elegant in appearance, yet very strong and impassable. Three ornamented gates relieve the uniformity of this iron trellis; one on the north leads through to the orange. groves, always inviting and delightful, whether in full bloom, and shedding ambrosial perfume in the spring, or laden with their golden fruit in the fall. The gate on the north admitted into the vineyard, where every variety of the finest and rarest grapes flourished in luxuriant abundance. The one on the east is central between these two others, and leads from the lawn down to the white and pebbly beach of the Pearl, where pretty boats are always moored for the convenience of the rambler who might desire to cross the river. And then the curving river itself is well name the Pearl, from the soft, semi-transparent glow of roseate, whitish, or saffron tints, caught from the heavens. Across the soft water, in rich contrast, lie hills, and groves, and cotton-fields—the latter, one of the gayest features in southern scenery. They are sometimes a mile square. They are planted in straight rows, six feet apart; and the earth between them, of a rich Spanish-red colour, is kept entirely clean from weeds. The plants grow to the height of seven feet, and spread in full-leaved branches, bearing brilliant white and gold-hued flowers. When in full bloom, a cottonfield by itself is a gorgeous landscape. Beyond these hills, and groves, and cotton fields, are other cottonfields, and groves, and hills, extending on and on, until afar off they blend with the horizon, in soft, indistinct hues, mingled together like the tints of the clouds. I have led you through the beautiful grounds immediately around and in front of the villa; but behind the mansion, and back of the grove, there are gardens and orchards, and still other fields of cotton and outhouses, and offices, and the negro village called "The Quarters." CHAPTER III. THE PLANTER'S DAUGHTER. She has halls and she has vassals, and the resonant steam eagles THE summer sun had just sunk below the horizon, leaving all the heavens suffused with a pale golden and roseate light, that falls softly on the semi-transparent waters of the Pearl, flowing serenely on between its banks of undulating hills and dales, and green and purple lights and glooms. No jarring sight or sound breaks the voluptuous stillness of the scene and hour. The golden light has faded from the windows and balconies of the villa, and sunk with the sunken sun. An evening breeze is rising from the distant pine-woods, that will soon tempt the inmates forth to enjoy its exhilarating and salubrious freshness and fragrance. But as yet all is quiet about the mansion. In the innermost sanctuary of that house reposes Miss Sutherland. It is the most elegant of a sumptu ous suit of apartments, upon which Mr. Sutherland had spared no amount of care or expense-having summoned from New Orleans a French artiste, of distinguished genius in his profession, to superintend their interior architecture, furnishing and adornment. The suit consists of a boudoir, two drawing-rooms, a hall or picture gallery, a music room, a double parlour, a library, and dining and breakfast rooms; and, by the machinery of grooved doors, all these splendid apartments may be thrown into one magnificent saloon. perfect of the suite is the It is a very bower of But the most finished and luxurious boudoir of India. beauty and love, a chef d'œuvre of artistic genius, a casket worthy to enshrine the Pearl of Pearl River. There she reposes in the recess of the bay window, "silk-curtained from the sun." This bay window is the only one in the apartment; it is both deep and lofty, and is a small room in itself. It is curtained off from the main apartment by drapery of purple damask satin, lined with gold-coloured silk, and festooned by gold cords and tassels. The interior of the recess is draped with thin gold-coloured silk alone; and the evening light, glowing through it, throws a warm, rich, lustrous atmosphere around the form of Oriental beauty, reposing on the silken couch in the recess. It is a rare type of beauty, not easy to realise by your imagination, blending the highest charms of the spiritual, the intellectual, and the sensual, in seeming perfect harmony; it is a costly type of beauty, possessed often only at a fearful discount of happiness; it is a dangerous organisation, full of fatality to its possessor and all connected with her; for that lovely and voluptuous repose resembles the undisturbed serenity of the young leopardess, or the verdant and flowery surface of the sleeping volcano. It is a richly and highly gifted nature, but one that, more than all others, requires in early youth the firm and steady guidance of the wise and good, and that in after life 1 |