Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/312

Rh After breakfast all go out on the piazza for a little while, the children leap about and chase one another through the garden, and it is a delight to see the graceful Sarah, now thirteen, leap about, brilliant with the freshness of youth and joy, and light as a young roe, with her plaits of hair and her ribbons flying in the wind. She is a most charming creature. The elder sister, Illione, is also a pretty girl, with something excellent, grave and demure in her demeanour and manner. Willie has beautiful eyes and brown curls, and Laura is a little rosebud. Two little black negro-girls, Georgia and Attila, the children of Lettis, jump and leap about in the house, and on the steps, as quick and dexterous as one might fancy black elves.

After breakfast I go into my own room and remain there quite undisturbed the whole forenoon. At twelve o'clock Mrs. W. H. sends me up a second breakfast, bread and butter, a glass of iced milk, oranges and bananas. You see my dear heart, I am not likely to suffer from hunger. At three o'clock they dine, and there may be a guest or two to dinner. In the afternoon my good hostess takes me out somewhere, which is in every way agreeable to me.

The evening is nevertheless the flower of the day in this family, (ah, in how many families is the evening the heaviest part of the day!) Then the lamps are lighted in the beautiful drawing-rooms; and all are summoned to tea. Then is Mrs. W. H., kind, and fat, and good, seated on the sofa with the great tea-table before her, loaded with good things; then small tea-tables are placed about, (I always have my own little table to myself near the sofa,) and the lively little negro-boy, Sam, (Mrs. W. H.'s great favourite) carries round the refreshments. Then come in, almost always, three or four young lads, sons of neighbouring friends of the family, and a couple of young girls also, and the young people