192 A PLEASANT SCENE. 



with but little difference, like that which lulled the heroic 

 Hannibal to sleep during his fatal residence at Capua. 



As for myself, I declare that I have never spent hap- 

 pier hours than those which I passed with my good 

 friends the owners of School ey's Mansion; and if this page 

 should ever be unfolded before them, let it bear witness 

 to my sincere gratitude to Mr. Dallifold and all his 

 family. 



Let my readers picture to themselves a very attractive 

 brick-built mansion, painted of a rose-tinted white, the 

 colour of the magnolia flower. A green verandah, sup- 

 ported by a colonnade embellished with lianas, and running 

 all round the house, gives it a fairy-like aspect, rendered 

 still more graceful by the flowering trees planted on every 

 side ; so that the house, embosomed in the shadow, re- 

 sembles a nest of humming-birds concealed in a bush of 

 odorous acacias. The balmy breath of the orange and 

 citron trees are so much the sweeter, that they are borne 

 on the wings of a warm and gentle breeze which rises 

 from the sea, whose waves wash the sloping greensward 

 of the garden-lawn. Gilded pheasants, and the birds of 

 China and Japan, daintily pick up in the avenues the 

 grains distributed by the planter's two pretty Creole 

 daughters; and in ponds and canals of salt-water, re- 

 newed at every tide, fishes of all kinds disport, perfectly 

 acclimatized, and resigned, so to speak, to their transient 

 captivity. This flowery Eden is, I think, the most pic- 

 turesque in the world. I have thought it my duty to 

 describe it as best I could, before resuming my details of 

 the chase. 



I had brought, along with my portmanteau, an excel- 



