d the house.

It was a long, low, spreading structure with a thatched roof, and a
verandah round it. A wilderness of tropical plants hemmed it in. But all
appearance of simplicity vanished on our entrance. In the matted hall
stood a tree to receive the light coverings we had worn; not a "hat
tree," as we say at home by poetic license, but the counterfeit
presentment of a real tree, carved in branches and delicate foliage out
of black wood. The drawing-room was eight-sided, and would have held,
with some margin, the gambrel-roofed house, chimneys and all, in which I
had spent my life. Two sides were open into other rooms, with Corinthian
pillars reaching to the roof. Carved screens a little higher than our
heads filled the space between the pillars, and separated the
drawing-room from Mrs. Rayne's boudoir on the side and the dining-room
on the other.

The furniture of these rooms was like so many verses of a poem. Every
chair and table had been designed by Mrs. Rayne, and then realized in
black wood by the patient hands of natives.

Another side opened by three glass doors on a verandah, and only a few
rods below the house the sea dashed against a beach.

After dinner I sat on the verandah drinking coffee and the sea-breeze by
turns. The gentlemen walked up and down smoking the pipe of peace, while
Mrs. Rayne sat within, talking with Rhoda in the candlelight. Opposite
me, as I looked in at the open door, hung two Madonnas, the Sistine and
the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. In front of each stood a tall
flower-stand carved to imitate the leaves and blossoms of the calla
lily. These black flowers held great bunches of the Annunciation lily,
sacred to the Virgin through all the ages. Mrs. Rayne had taken off the
close-buttoned jacket, and her dress was now open at the throat, with
some rich old lace clinging about it and fastened with a pearl daisy.

"Have you forgiven me the minute's deception I put upon you?" said Mr.
Rayne, pausing beside me. "If I had not read admiration in your face, I
would have told you the truth at once."

"How could one help admiring her?"

"I don't know, I'm sure: I never could."

"She has the serenest face, like still, shaded water. I wonder how she
would look in trouble?"

"It is not becoming to her."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"Your way of life here seems so perfect! No hurry nor worry--nothing to
make wrinkles."

"You like this smooth Indian living, then?"

"_Like it_