54 MYSTIC ISLES 



Her goodly flesh shook with her laughter, her darken- 

 ing eyes suffused with happy tears at the memory, and 

 she put her broad hand between my shoulders for a 

 moment as if to draw me into the rejoicing of her wed- 

 ding feast. She led me about the garden to show me 

 how she had from year to year planted the many trees, 

 herbs, and bushes it contained. It had set out to be 

 formal, but, like most efforts at taming the fierce fe- 

 cundity of nature in these seas, had become a tangle of 

 verdure, for though now and then combed into some 

 regularity, the breezes, the dogs, the chickens, and the 

 invading people ruffled it, the falling leaves covered 

 the grass, and the dead branches sighed for burial. 

 Down the narrow path she went ponderously, showing 

 me the cannas, jasmine and rose, picking a lime or a 

 tamarind, a bouquet of mock-orange flowers, smoothing 

 the tuberoses, the hibiscus of many colors, the oleanders, 

 maile ilima. Star of Bethlehem, frangipani, and, her 

 greatest love, the tiare Tahiti. There were snake- 

 plants, East-India cherries, coffee-bushes, custard-ap- 

 ples, and the hinano, the sweetness of which and of the 

 tiare made heavy the air. 



I said that we had no flower in America as wonderful 

 in perfume as these. 



Lovaina stopped her slow, heavy steps. She raised 

 her beautiful, big hand, and arresting my attention, she 

 exclaimed: 



"You know that oV hinano! 01' time we use that 

 Tahiti cologne. Girl put that on ijareu an' on dress, 

 by an' by make whole body jus' like flower. That set 

 man crazee; make all man want kiss an' hug." 



Doubtless, our foremothers when they sought to win 



