, looking back. "We
have four divisions."

"What do you think of them?" inquired Garda.

"The divisions?"

"No; my four persons about here."

"Dr. Kirby is delightful, I don't know when I have met any one so much
so."

"Delightful," said Garda, meditatively. "I am very fond of Dr. Reginald,
he is almost the best friend I have in the world; but delightful?--does
delightful mean--mean--" She paused, leaving her sentence unfinished.

"Does delightful mean Dr. Kirby?" said Winthrop, finishing it for her.
"Dr. Kirby is certainly delightful, but he doesn't exhaust the capacity
of the adjective; it has branches in other directions."

"And the others?"

"The other directions?"

"No; the other persons about here."

"I have seen Mr. Moore so few times that I have had scarcely opportunity
to form an opinion."

"You formed one of Dr. Reginald the first time you saw him. But I was
not speaking of Mr. Moore, I meant the others still."

"Those young natives? Really, I have not observed them."

"Now, there, I do not believe you," said Garda; "you have observed them,
you observe everything. You say that to put them down--why should you
put them down? You are very imperious, why should you be imperious?" And
she looked at him, not vexed but frankly curious.

"Imperious," said Winthrop; "what extraordinary words you use? I am not
imperious, as you call it, with you."

"No; but you would be if it were allowable," said the girl, nodding her
head shrewdly. "Fortunately it isn't."

"Make the experiment--allow it; I might do better than you think."

"There is room for improvement, certainly," she answered, laughing. They
had reached the end of the orange aisle, she passed under the green
archway (which proved to be quite high enough), and went out into the
sunshine beyond, calling "Carlos Mateo? Carlos, dear?" Then, in Spanish,
"Angel of my heart, come to me."

The old garden had long been left untended. It was large, but seemed
larger even than it was, because it had wandered out into the forest,
and wild growths from there had come back with it; these had jumped
boldly across the once well-guarded boundaries and overrun the
cultivated verdure with their lawless green; oleanders were lost in
thickets, fig-trees, pomegranates, and guavas were bound together in a
tangle of vines; flower beds had become miniature jungles in which the
descendants of the high-born blossoms that had once held sway there had
forgotten their m