Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/43

Rh Later.—I have seen Octavia once more the ornament of society, although still pale and her eyes red with weeping, dressed in grand costume, in a black satin dress, which from its many points and adornments I call Yucca Gloriosa, surrounded by a little court of gentlemen, “faire la belle conversation,” in one of the splendid drawing-rooms of the hotel. Friends and admirers will soon make Octavia lively here, and I can now leave her comfortably and go to a quieter home and to my amiable North Americans. Octavia is a rose, Anne W. is a diamond, Mrs. G. a genuine pearl, and you—you are my Agatha!

&emsp; My dear Heart!****

January 20th.—I began to write, but was interrupted, on the second day after my removal to this good, quiet home, the home of a young couple, gentle and quiet people who seem to live wholly and entirely for each other, and their two little children, the youngest still a baby, just now beginning to open his little rosy mouth, and smile and coo. It was the most glorious weather on the afternoon and evening of the day on which I removed here; I cannot describe the deliciousness of the air, the serenity of the heavens, the enchanting beauty of the sun, the clouds, the moon, and the stars on this day, when merely to live, to see, and to breathe sufficed to give a fulness to life. Miss W. and I sate out on the piazza with oleanders and magnolias around us, and enjoyed this affluence of nature. Tall aloes, the yucca gloriosa, and many rare trees and plants shone out verdantly from the little flower-beds of the garden which surround the lovely house. I enjoyed, besides this, her conversation, which is distinguished by its freshness and originality, its perfectly independent and earnest mode of feeling and judging. I again perceived that imprisoned fire which I had before seen glimmering