er the South Atlantic.

At Kingston the _Summer Shelter_ and the _Monterey_ were both left,--the
former to be completely repaired and brought home by Mr. Portman, and
the other to be coaled and sent back to Vera Cruz, with her officers and
her crew,--and our whole party, including Captain Hagar, sailed in the
next mail steamer for New York.

CHAPTER XXXIV

PLAINTON, MAINE

It was late in the summer, and Mrs. Cliff dwelt happy and serene in her
native town of Plainton, Maine. She had been there during the whole warm
season, for Plainton was a place to which people came to be cool and
comfortable in summer-time, and if she left her home at all, it would
not be in the months of foliage and flowers. It might well be believed
by any one who would look out of one of the tall windows of her
drawing-room that Mrs. Cliff did not need to leave home for the mere
sake of rural beauty. On the other side of the street, where once
stretched a block of poor little houses and shops, now lay a beautiful
park, The Grove of the Incas.

The zeal of Mr. Burke and the money of Mrs. Cliff had had a powerful
influence upon the minds of the contractors and landscape-gardeners who
had this great work in hand, and the park, which really covered a very
large space in the village, now appeared from certain points of view to
extend for miles, so artfully had been arranged its masses of
obstructing foliage, and its open vistas of uninterrupted view. The
surface of the ground, which had been a little rolling, had been made
more unequal and diversified, and over all the little hills and dells,
and upon the wide, smooth stretches there was a covering of bright green
turf. It had been a season of genial rains, and there had been a special
corps of workmen to attend to the grass of the new park.

Great trees were scattered here and there, and many people wondered when
they saw them, but these trees, oaks and chestnuts, tall hickories and
bright cheerful maples, had been growing where they stood since they
were little saplings. The people of Plainton had always been fond of
trees, and they had them in their side yards, and in their back yards,
and at the front of their houses; and when, within the limits of the new
park, all these yards, and houses, and sheds, and fences had been
cleared away, there stood the trees. Hundreds of other trees, evergreens
and deciduous, many of them of good size, had been brought from the
adjacent country on grea