"Why do you keep taking it for granted that I sketch? Do I look like an
artist?"

"Oh no; I've never seen an artist, but I'm sure you don't look like one.
I suppose you sketch simply because I suppose northerners can do
everything; I shall be fearfully disappointed if they cannot--when I see
them."

"Do you wish to see them?"

"I wish to see hundreds," answered Miss Thorne, with great deliberation,
"I wish to see thousands. I wish to see them at balls; I have never seen
a ball. I wish to see them driving in parks; I have never seen a park. I
wish to see them climbing mountains; I have never seen a mountain--"

"They don't do it in droves, you know," interpolated her companion.

"--I wish to see them in the halls of Congress; I have never seen
Congress. I wish to see them at the Springs; I have never seen Springs.
I wish to see them wearing diamonds; I have never seen diamonds--"

"The last is a wish easily gratified. In America, as one may say, the
diamond's the only wear," remarked Winthrop, taking out a little
linen-covered book.

Garda did not question this assertion, which reduced her own
neighborhood to so insignificant an exception to a general rule that it
need not even be mentioned. To her Florida was Florida. America? That
was quite another country.

"You are going to sketch, after all," said the girl. She looked about
her for a conveniently shaped fragment among the fallen blocks, and,
finding one, seated herself, leaning against a second sun-warmed
fragment which she took as her chair's back. "I thought I mentioned that
there would not be time," she added, indolently, in her sweet voice.

"It will take but a moment," answered Winthrop. "I am no artist, as you
have already mentioned; but, plainly, as a northerner, I must do
something, or fall hopelessly below your expectations. There is no
mountain here for me to climb, there is no ball at which I can dance.
I'm not a Congressman and can't tell you about the 'halls,' and I
haven't a diamond to my name, not one. Clearly, therefore, I must
sketch; there is nothing else left." And with slow, accurate touch he
began to pencil an outline of the flower-starred walls upon his little
page. Garda, the handle of her white umbrella poised on one shoulder,
watched him from under its shade. He did not look up nor break the
silence, and after a while she closed her eyes and sat there motionless
in the flower-perfumed air. Thus they remained for fully fifteen