I can hear music at this moment, and inside my castle. It comes
from the irrepressible throats of my cook and my housemaid, who have
more joy in the language of the plantation than you could have in
the songs of St. Angelus. The only person in this castle out of
spirits is its owner.
My castle is embowered in a loose grove of palms and acacias,
pimento shrubs, spendid star-apples, and bully-trees, with wild
lemon, mahogany, dogwood, Jerusalem-thorn, and the waving plumes of
bamboo canes. There is nothing British in it--nothing at all. It
stands on brick pillars, is reached by a stair of marble slabs, and
has a great piazza on the front. You enter a fine, big hall, dark-
you will understand that, though it is not so hot in Virginia, for
the darkness makes for coolness. From the hall the bedrooms open
all round. We are not so barbaric here as you might think, for my
dining-room, which lies beyond the hall, with jalousies or movable
blinds, exposed to all the winds, is comfortable, even ornate.
There you shall see waxlights on the table, and finger-glasses with
green leaves, and fine linen and napkins, and plenty of silver--even
silver wine-coolers, and beakers of fame and beauty, and flowers,
flowers everywhere, and fruit of exquisite charm.
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