well,
better perhaps than any in Beata; but so measured were her quantities,
so exact her reckonings, so long her look ahead, that sometimes, when
she was away, old Viny felt a sudden wild desire to toss up fritters in
the middle of the afternoon, to throw away yesterday's tea-leaves, to
hurl the soured milk into the road, or even to eat oranges without
counting them, according to the fashions of the easy old days when
Doro's Spanish grandmother held the reins, and everything went to ruin
comfortably. Every morning after breakfast Miss Elisabetha went the
rounds through the house and garden; then English and French with Doro
for two hours; next a sea-bath for him, and sailing or walking as he
pleased, when the sun was not too hot. Luncheon at noon, followed by a
_siesta_; then came a music-lesson, long and charming to both; and,
after that, he had his choice from among her few books. Dinner at five,
a stroll along the beach, music in the evenings--at first the piano in
the parlor, then the guitar under the arches; last of all, the light
supper, and good-night. Such was Doro's day. But Miss Elisabetha,
meanwhile, had a hundred other duties which she never neglected, in
spite of her attention to his welfare--first the boy, then his money,
for it was earned and destined for him. Thus the years had passed,
without change, without event, without misfortune; the orange-trees had
not failed, the palmetto-work had not waned, and the little store of
money grew apace. Doro, fully employed, indulged by Viny, amused with
his dogs, his parrot, his mocking-birds, and young owls, all the variety
of pets the tropical land afforded, even to young alligators
clandestinely kept in a sunken barrel up the marsh, knew no _ennui_.
But, most of all, the music filled his life, rounding out every empty
moment, and making an undercurrent, as it were, to all other
occupations; so that the French waltzed through his brain, the English
went to marches, the sailing made for itself _gondelieds_, and even his
plunges in the Warra were like crashes of fairy octaves, with
_arpeggios_ of pearly notes in showers coming after.

These were the _ante-bellum_ days, before the war had opened the
Southern country to winter visitors from the North; invalids a few,
tourists a few, came and went, but the great tide, which now sweeps
annually down the Atlantic coast to Florida, was then unknown. Beata,
lying by itself far down the peninsula, no more looked for winte