den with the mingled perfumes of a tropical
garden. A spray of rose bush, laden with magnificent crimson blooms,
swished to and fro before the window, swayed by the breeze, and wafted
dashes of its scent-laden breath toward me; and beyond it there
stretched a vista of flowering shrubs, orange and banana trees, the
straight smooth stems of palms, part of the gigantic trunk of a
silk-cotton tree springing from a smooth sward of guinea grass; and
beyond it again a thicket of bamboo, the delicate feathery foliage of
which closed the view. Splendid butterflies flitted hither and thither,
a few humming-birds, poised upon their swiftly-fanning wings, hung over
the flowering plants, like living gems, sipping the nectar of the
blooms; and occasionally a brilliant green lizard would dart along the
broad window-sill in chase of a fly.

For several minutes I lay quite motionless, lost in admiration of the
beauty of the picture upon which my eyes rested, and inhaling long
breaths of the perfumed air that played about me; then a swiftly awaking
consciousness that I was distinctly hungry caused me to turn my head
toward the chair which Mama Elisa had occupied when I fell asleep. The
chair was still occupied, not by Mama Elisa, however, but by a quadroon
girl of about seventeen years of age, clad in the usual garb of the
coloured women, namely, a sort of loose chemise of white cotton, and a
petticoat, printed in a kind of Paisley pattern, which reached to a
little below her knees. Her long black hair hung in two thick plaits
down far below her waist; she wore massive gold earrings in her small
shapely ears; a necklace of big amber beads encircled her
finely-modelled neck, and her otherwise bare feet were shod in low-cut
crimson morocco slippers. When I first glimpsed her she was leaning
back in a chair, idly waving a palm-leaf fan, while her fine dark eyes
gazed abstractedly, and with a somewhat sad expression, methought, upon
the brilliant picture presented by the open window; but as I stared she
started to her feet and bent over me, gazing intently into my eyes; then
she laid her soft, shapely hand for a moment upon my brow, withdrew it
again, and murmured, in pure, rich Castilian:

"The Senor is better. He has slept long and well. His skin is cool;
the fever has gone. And he is hungry; is it not so?"

I nodded.

"Good!" she exclaimed, with a smile of satisfaction that disclosed two
rows of small, perfectly-shaped teeth.