you to a good many
of them."

"Sir," responded the Doctor, courteously waiving the question of
accuracy, "what I notice is your command of language. It would never
have occurred to me to say feudal, I admire your affluence."

"And I am ashamed of it," said Winthrop, "I am ashamed of myself for
staring about and applying adjectives in this way to the people and
scenery here, as though it were a foreign country; it ought to be as
much a part of me, and I of it, as though it were Massachusetts Bay."

But this view of the subject was beyond the Doctor's comprehension; to
him the difference between New England and the South was as wide,
whether considered geographically, psychologically, or historically, as
that between the South and Japan. Nothing could have made him, Reginald
Kirby, feel a sympathetic ownership in Massachusetts Bay, and he saw no
reason why this Mr. Evert Winthrop should be claiming proprietorship in
a distinctively Spanish and Carolinian shore. The singular views of
these northerners were apparently endless! But in this case, at least,
the views could do no harm, Florida would remain Florida, in spite of
northern hallucinations.

Beyond the low stone houses of St. Luz, they crossed a common, and
gained the open shore. The coast here bent sharply to the east, and went
out to sea in a long point, the beach which fringed this point was
called the Benito; the party of strollers walked down the Benito's firm
white floor, with the sea breaking in little lapping wavelets at its
edge, and the moonlight flooding land and water with its wonderful
radiance. The beach was forty feet broad; Winthrop and the Doctor joined
the ladies. But Garda kept her place beside Mrs. Harold, and talked only
to her, she seemed to be fascinated by all the northern lady said.
Winthrop could not fail to see that her interest in this new companion
was of the same sort as that which she had originally shown regarding
himself--curiosity, apparently; and that Margaret Harold excited the
feeling in a stronger degree than he had done. Meanwhile it amused him
to see how completely this Florida girl did as she pleased. It pleased
her now to forget him entirely; but he was not the only one, she forgot
the Doctor also, and the patient lonely Torres behind.

It may as well be mentioned here that the Doctor went as far as the old
boat he remembered. And that then he went farther; he went to the end of
the point, a mile away.

"Surely you ha