en all others
slept; and whether I tracked the wayworn asses at their dreary round,
or pursued my solitary path at night, my own was the only voice I ever
heard. It was the "life of a dog;" but, after all, how many states of
existence there are far less desirable! I had always wherewithal to
subsist upon; I had no severe labor, nor any duty incompatible with
health; and I had--greatest blessing of all--time for self-communing
and reflection; that delicious leisure, in which the meanest hovel ever
raised by hands become one's "Home." I was happy, then, after my own
fashion; various little contrivances to lighten my tasks amused and
occupied my thoughts. To bring the garden into order was also a passion
with me; and although necessitated to invent and fashion the tools to
work with, I was not deterred by this difficulty, but manfully overcame
it. I greatly doubted if Watt ever gazed at a new improvement in steam
machinery with half the delight I looked upon my first attempt at
a rake. Then, what pleasure did I experience as I saw the trim beds
covered with blooming flowers, the clearly raked walks, the grass-plots
close-shaven and weedless! How the thoughts of changes and alterations
filled my mind as I wandered in the dreary night! What trellises did I
not invent; what festoons of the winding vine-branches; what bowers of
the leafy banana! Like the old gardener, Adam, I began at last to think
that all these things were too beautiful for one man's gaze, that such
ecstasies as mine deserved companionship, and that the selfishness of
my enjoyment was the greatest blot upon its perfection. When this notion
caught hold of me, I wandered away in fancy to the "Donna Maria de los
Dolores;" and how fervently did I believe that, with her to share it, my
present existence had been a life of Paradise!

These thoughts at last exhausted themselves, and I fell a thinking why
the Senhora Dias never had the curiosity to visit her garden, nor
see the changes I had wrought in it. To be sure, it was true she knew
nothing of them: how, then, was I to make the fact reach her ears? The
only hours that _I_ was at liberty were those when every close-drawn
curtain and closed shutter proclaimed the "siesta."

It was clear enough that a whole life might slip over in this fashion
without my ever seeing her. There was something in the difficulty that
prompted a desire to overcome it; and so I set myself to plan the means
by which I might make her ac