200 A FLORIDA SHRINE. 



everything through very blue spectacles. 

 " Have you seen any of those fine old coun- 

 try mansions," he asked, " about which we 

 read so often in descriptions of Southern 

 life?" He had been on the lookout for 

 them, he averred, ever since he left home, and 

 had yet to find the first one ; and from his 

 tone it was evident that he thought the 

 Southern idea of a " fine old mansion " 

 must be different from his. 



The Murat house, certainly, was never a 

 palace, except as love may have made it so. 

 But it was old ; people had lived in it, and 

 died in it ; those who once owned it, whose 

 name and memory still clung to it, were 

 now in narrower houses ; and it was easy 

 for the visitor for one visitor, at least 

 to fall into pensive meditation. I 

 strolled about the grounds ; stood be- 

 tween the last year's cotton-rows, while 

 a Carolina wren poured out his soul from 

 an oleander bush near by; admired the 

 confidence of a pair of shrikes, who had 

 made a nest in a honeysuckle vine in 

 the front yard; listened to the sweet mu- 

 sic of mocking-birds, cardinals, and orchard 

 orioles ; watched the martins circling above 



