was almost filled with sashes,
as in a greenhouse. Close against these sashes, now so bright with the
Southern sun that I was half-blinded for an instant, were rows of
shelves, crowded with cut flowers in vases, and growing flowers in pots.
Most of the sashes were open, and the space thus left was screened by
twine netting, something like fine fish seines. Old Madam Leigh had
netted each of these squares herself, as I learned afterward. The same
protected back and front windows. About the open windows, and around the
flowers, flew and floated what I thought, at first, were at least one
hundred humming-birds. Madam Leigh said there were but twenty-five, all
told. The whir of their rapid wings filled the air, the gleam of their
brilliant breasts and backs was like living jewels.

"_Oh-h-h-h!!_" was all I could utter, as I clasped my hands in admiring
wonder at the beauty and the strangeness of it all, and a queer lump
came into my throat, as if I were frightened or sorry, and I knew I was
only delighted past speaking. Madam let me alone for a minute, before
she laid her small, wrinkled hands upon my shoulders and turned me about
to see something I had not observed in my raptures over the marvellous
birds.

Against the wall beyond the door was a long, broad table, or rather
counter, and upon it was a village of small houses, rows upon rows of
them. Outside of the village and the streets were other and larger
houses, in groups of two and three, with dooryards and gardens, and then
came half a dozen farm-houses surrounded by fields and gardens. In the
village there were stores and a Court House, and a Clerk's Office and a
Jail, surrounded by a Public Square, exactly like that at Powhatan Court
House, and two taverns with signs hanging outside of them. Trees lined
the streets, and vines were running over the houses. Then, there were
wells, and wood-piles with men chopping wood at them, and cow-pens with
cows and calves, and pig-pens filled with pigs. Men were driving wagons
along the roads, and a fine carriage with four horses harnessed to it
and a coachman on the box stood before the larger of the two taverns.
The footman, hat in hand, was helping two elegantly dressed ladies out
of the carriage, and the landlady, with two colored maids behind her,
was upon the portico waiting to receive them. Men were digging in the
corn and tobacco fields; there were turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese,
and boys riding horses to water an