ly hastened to offer--the best
in their power--a clean gourd with water from the mansion's old well, a
look at the bear, the baby, and the pet alligator of tender years
confined in a pen near by, they took their way along an old road leading
down the island towards the south.

"They _are_ contented," said Lucian. "For one thing, they are never
cold; poor people can stand a great deal when winter is taken out of
their lives. Here, too, they can almost get their food for the
asking--certainly for the hunting and fishing. Yes, yes: if I had to be
very poor--if _we_ had to be very poor, Rosalie--I should say, with all
my heart, let it be in Florida!"

These sallies of Lucian's fancy were always rather hard for his wife;
she admired them, of course--she admired everything Lucian said; but she
could not see any reasonable connection between their life, under any
emergencies that could come to it, and the life of people who lived
behind a facade of counterpane, who caught bears, and ate them from an
iron pot. However, there must be one, since Lucian saw it; she smiled
assent, therefore, and did her best to answer warmly, "Oh _yes_, in
Florida!"

"But I suppose they have very little chance to improve here--to rise,"
began Margaret.

"I don't want them to rise," said Lucian, in his light way; "too much
'rising,' in my opinion, is the bane of our American life. The ladder's
free to all, or rather the elevator; and we spend our lives, the whole
American nation, in elevators."

Rosalie fully agreed with her husband here. This was a subject upon
which she had definite opinions. She thought that every one should be as
charitable as possible, and she herself lived up to this belief by
giving away a generous sum in charity every year. Her ideas were
liberal; she thought that "the poor" should have plenty of soup and
blankets in the winter, as well as coals (somehow, in charity, it seemed
more natural to say "coals"); there should be a Christmas-tree for every
Sunday-school, with a useful present for each child; she would have
liked, had it been possible, to reintroduce May-poles on May-day;
May-day would come at the North about the last of June. She had a
dislike for the free-school system; she thought school-girls should not
have heels to their shoes; she thought there should be a property
qualification attached to the suffrage. She looked at Torres, who was by
her side, wondering if he would understand these ideas if she should