152 FLORIDA 



judge by appearances their sensations are not 

 poignant, though the anglers and the golfers, 

 and even the shuffle-board players, no doubt 

 have, their exciting moments ; but on the whole 

 the winter passes rather quickly. When there 

 is nothing else to do, and the time drags, one 

 can always cheer one's self by thinking how 

 intemperate the season is at home. The most 

 refreshing parts of the Northern newspapers are 

 their reports of snowstorms and blizzards. 



For my own part, I admire the ladies' gowns 

 (in one sense or other of the word, who could 

 help it ?), but what my untutored mind is most 

 taken with is the beauty of the natural world, 

 the world as God made it, rather than as man, 

 even the man-milliner, has improved it. I love 

 to look up or down the moss-hung vista of the 

 river road (I am still at Ormond), or, turning 

 my head, to gaze across the smooth water at the 

 freshly green, happy-looking oak woods and the 

 overtopping pines. These are pictures that I 

 hope never to forget. 



The other day an old friend, a settler in these 

 parts, rowed me down the river a few miles. 

 There we took an untraveled road through the 

 forest, and by and by came suddenly to a clear- 

 ing, in the middle of which stood an abandoned 

 house. The place had once been an orange 



