And what did
it matter that outside the place there were brown sand-hills and
pale-sailed ships? A high hedge of myrtles hid it in a large garden
full of the scents of the sun-burnt South--a garden of fragrant beauty,
where one might dream idly all day long.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon of an August day, and every thing
was still; only the _cicadas_ ran from hedge to hedge telling
each other, in clear resonant voices, how hot it was. The house door
stood open, but all the green jalousies were closed, and not a breath
of air stirred the lace curtains hanging motionless before the windows.
The rooms, large and lofty, were in a dusky light, their atmosphere
still and warm and heavy with the scent of flowers. On the back piazza
half a dozen negro children were sleeping in all sorts of picturesque
attitudes, a bright mulatto women was dozing in a rocking-chair, and
the cook, having "fixed" his dinner ready for the stove, had rolled
himself in his blanket on the kitchen floor. Silence and dusk were
every-where, the dwelling might have been an enchanted one, and life
in it held in a trance.
In one of the upper rooms there was an occupant well calculated to
carry out this idea. It was Phyllis, fast asleep upon a white couch,
with both hands dropped toward the floor. But the sewing which had
fallen from them, and the thimble still upon her finger, was guarantee
for her mortality.
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