anners in the crowd of lusty plebeian plants that
jostled against them. Even the saw-palmetto had pushed his way in from
the barrens, and now clogged the paths with his rough red legs, holding
up his stiff fans in the very faces of the lilies, who, being southern
lilies, longed for the sun. A few paths had been kept open, however,
round the great rose-tree, the pride of the place, a patriarch fifteen
feet high, its branches covered with beautiful tea-roses, whose petals
of soft creamy hue were touched at the edges with an exquisite pink. A
little space of garden beds in comparative order encircled this tree;
here, too, on the right, opened out the sweet-orange grove.

This grove was by no means in good condition, many of its trees were
ancient, some were dead; still, work had been done there, and the
attempt, such as it was, had been persisted in, though never
effectually. The persistence had been due to the will of Mrs. Thorne,
the ineffectualness to the will of old Pablo. His mistress, by a system
of serene determination, had been able to triumph, to a certain extent,
over the ancient and well-organized contrariness of this old man--a dumb
opposition whose existence she never in the least recognized, though its
force she well knew. Each season the obstinate old servant began by
disapproving regularly of everything she ordered; next, he carried out
her orders slowly, and with as many delays as possible--this not so much
from any reasonable objection to her ideas as from his general
principles of resistance, founded upon family pride. For Pablo, who was
Raquel's husband--a bent little negro of advanced age--could never
forget that "Marse Edgar's wife" was but an interloper after all, an
importation from New England, and not "ob de fambly c'nection," not even
of southern birth. The memory of majestic "Old Madam," Edgar Thorne's
Spanish aunt, kept her "Young Miss" still in the estimation of the two
old slaves, though "Ole Miss" had now been for a number of years safely
in her coquina tomb--"let us hope enjoying rest and peace--as that poor
little Mistress Thorne will now enjoy them too, _at last_," as an old
friend of the family, Mrs. Betty Carew, had remarked with much feeling,
though some ambiguity of phrase (the latter quite unintentional), the
day after the funeral.

"Young Miss 'lows dese yere's _yappul_-trees," Pablo said to Raquel,
with a fine scorn, as he dug objectingly round their roots. "An' 'lowing
it, '_lowi