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They passed from the great northern wheat region into that of corn, then into the broad cotton belt, and finally to the land of sugar-cane and rice, orange-trees, glossy-leaved magnolias, and gaunt moss-hung cypresses. Of more immediate interest even than these ever-changing features of the land was the varied and teeming life of the mighty river itself.
Orange-trees with their ripe fruit shone in the sunbeams like gold. Stately palms rose above the surrounding trees and waved their feathery plumes in the air, and bananas with broad enormous leaves rustled in the breeze and cast a cool shadow on the ground.
The conservatory was deliciously cool on this summer evening, dimly lighted by lamps that were half hidden among the palms and orange-trees. Lady Mabel and her companion could see the stars shining through the open doorway, and the mystical darkness of remote woods. Their voices were hushed; there were pauses of silence in their talk.
The land showed the remains of plantations which had flourished there in the palmy days of the island. The ruins of several mansions and many small huts were seen. Cocoa-nut palms and orange-trees were abundant. After they had walked about a mile, they came upon what had been a road in former days, and was evidently used to some extent still.
Near it I laid out a new garden, wherein I planted all the orange-trees we had reared, as well as many of the seeds and roots we had brought from the wreck. A little beyond I inclosed a paddock, wherein I planted the twigs we had found in pots, which proved to be fruit-trees.
'Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more, said Flora, 'that in travelling back you will have the kindness to look for this foreign gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the turnings and to make inquiries for him at all the hotels and orange-trees and vineyards and volcanoes and places for he must be somewhere and why doesn't he come forward and say he's there and clear all parties up?
For wedding decorations, houses are now filled with palm-trees in pots and orange-trees in full bearing. An entire suite of rooms is made into a bower of large-leaved plants. Mirrors are covered with vines, wreaths, and climbing roses, trained across a trellis of wire. The bride stands under a floral umbrella, which juts out into the room.
One of the objects pointed out to us was a large yellow house, on a hillside, in the outskirts of Genoa, which was formerly inhabited for six months by Charles Dickens. Looking down from the elevated part of the pleasure-gardens, we saw orange-trees beneath us, with the golden fruit hanging upon them, though their trunks were muffled in straw; and, still lower down, there was ice and snow.
Lawrence said it was like a dream, walking under the orange-trees and looking down on the old Tiber, which makes a sudden turn at the bottom of the broad terrace.
If it be as you say, which I did not know, give me some days to pray and prepare my soul, that I may offer myself in all humility." During this conversation Elsie had left the garden and gone a little way down the gorge, to have a few moments of gossip with an old crony. The light of the evening sky had gradually faded away, and the full moon was pouring a shower of silver upon the orange-trees.
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