into pensive meditation. I strolled about the
grounds; stood between the last year's cotton-rows, while a Carolina
wren poured out his soul from an oleander bush near by; admired the
confidence of a pair of shrikes, who had made a nest in a honeysuckle
vine in the front yard; listened to the sweet music of mocking-birds,
cardinals, and orchard orioles; watched the martins circling above the
trees; thought of the Princess, and smiled at the black children who
thrust their heads out of the windows of her "big house;" and then, with
a sprig of honeysuckle for a keepsake, I started slowly homeward.

The sun by this time was straight overhead, but my umbrella saved me
from absolute discomfort, while birds furnished here and there an
agreeable diversion. I recall in particular some white-crowned sparrows,
the first ones I had seen in Florida. At a bend in the road opposite the
water-lily swamp, while I was cooling myself in the shade of a friendly
pine-tree,--enjoying at the same time a fence overrun with Cherokee
roses,--a man and his little boy came along in a wagon. The man seemed
really disappointed when I told him that I was going into town, instead
of coming from it. It was pretty warm weather for walking, and he had
meant to offer me a lift. He was a Scandinavian, who had been for some
years in Florida. He owned a good farm not far from the Murat estate,
which latter he had been urged to buy; but he thought a man wasn't any
better off for owning too much land. He talked of his crops, his
children, the climate, and so on, all in a cheerful strain, pleasant to
hear. If the pessimists are right,--which may I be kept from
believing,--the optimists are certainly more comfortable to live with,
though it be only for ten minutes under a roadside shade-tree.

When I reached the street-car track at the foot of the hill, the one car
which plies back and forth through the city was in its place, with the
driver beside it, but no mules.

"Are you going to start directly?" I asked.

"Yes, sah," he answered; and then, looking toward the stable, he shouted
in a peremptory voice, "Do about, there! Do about!"

"What does that mean?" said I. "Hurry up?"

"Yes, sah, that's it. 'Tain't everybody that wants to be hurried up; so
we tells 'em, 'Do about!'"

Half a minute afterwards two very neatly dressed little colored boys
stepped upon the rear platform.

"Where you goin'?" said the driver. "Uptown?"

They said they were.

"Well