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Show 234 UNCLE TOM'S Ci\ll!N: O"R, had begun to work herself into n real distress, he came up, with his usually careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the orange ho was eating, said, "'Veil, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready." " I 'vo been ready, waiting: nearly an hour/' said :Miss Ophelia; "I began to bo really concerned about you." "'l'hat 's a clever fellow, now," said ho. "Well, the carriage is waiting, and the crowd arc now off, so that one can walk out in a decent and Christian manner, and not be pushed and shoved. Here," he added to a driver who stood behind him, "take these things." '~I'll go and sec to his putting them in," said Miss Ophelia. :: 0, pshaw, cousin, what 's the usc 1" said St. C1are. "'Veil, at any rate, Pll carry this, and this, and this," said Miss Ophelia, singling out three boxes and a small cru·pet-bag. ".l\Jy dear ~iiss Vermont, positively, you mustn't come the Green Mountains over us that way. You must adopt at ]east a piece of a southern principle, and not walk out under all that load. They'll take you for a waiting-maid; give them to this fellow ; he '11 put them down as if they wore eggs, now." Miss Ophelia looked despairingly, as her cousin took all her treasures from her, and rejoiced to find hcrseJf once more in the carriage with them, in a state of preservation. "Where 's Tom1" said Eva. '' 0, he's on the outside, Pussy. I 'm going to take •.rom up to mother for a peace-offering, to make up for that drunken fellow that upset tho carriage." "0, Tom will make a splendid driver, I know/' said Eva; "he'll never get drunk." LIFE AMOXG THE LOWLY. 235 The carriage stopped in front of an ancient mansion, built in that odd mixture of Spanish and French style, of which there aTe specimens in some parts of K cw Orleans. It was built in the Moorish fashion,-o. square building enclosing a court-yard, into which the carriage drove through an arched gateway. ~'he court, in the inside, had evidently been arranged to gratify a picturesque and voluptuous ideality. 'Vide galleries ran a1l around tho four sides, whose ~Moorish arches, slender pillars, and arabesque ornaments, carried the mind back, as in a dream, to the reign of oriental romance in Spain. In tho middle of the court, a fountain throw high its silvery water, fa,lling in r~ never-ceasing spray into a marble basin, fringed with a deep border of fragrant violets. 'l'he water in the fOuntain, pellucid as crystal, was alive with myriads of gold and silver fishes, twinkling and darting through it like so many living jewels. Around the fountain ran a walk, paved with a. mosaic of pebbles, laid in various fanciful patterns; and this, again, wa.s surrounded by turf, smooth as green velvet, while a carriage-drive enclosed the whole. 'l'wo large orange-trees, now fragrant with blossoms, threw a delicious shade ; and, ranged in a circle round upon tho turf, were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing the choicest Ilowcring. pln.nts of the tropics. Huge pomegranate trees, with their glossy leaves and flame-colored flowers, dark-leaved Arabian jessamines, witlt their silvery stars, gerauiums, luxuriant roses bending beneath their heavy abundance of flowers, golden jessamines, lemon-scented verbcnum, all united their bloom and fragrance, while here and there a mystic old aloe, with its strange, massive leaves, sat looking liko some hoary old enchanter, sitting in weird grandeur among the more perishable bloom and fragrance around it. The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned |