Bartholomew went back to the window and parted the curtains. "Come," he said. A tall man appeared. "Mrs. Churchill, let me present to you Mr. David Rod."
Mrs. Churchill was gracious to the stranger; she offered him a chair near hers, which he accepted; a cup of tea, which he declined; and the usual small questions of a first meeting, which only very original minds are bold enough to jump over. The stranger answered the questions promptly; he was evidently not original. He had arrived two days before; this was his first visit to Italy; the Bay of Naples was beautiful; he had not been up Vesuvius; he had not visited Pompeii; he was not afraid of fever; and he had met Horace Bartholomew in Florida the year before.
"I am told they are beginning to go a great deal to Florida," remarked Fanny.
"I don't go there; I live there," Rod answered.
"Indeed! in what part?" (She brought forward the only names she knew.) "St. Augustine, perhaps? Or Tallahassee?"
"No; I live on the southern coast; at Punta Palmas?"
"How Spanish that is! Perhaps you have one of those old Spanish plantations?" She had now exhausted all her knowledge of the State save a vague memory of her school geography: "Where are the Everglades?" "They are in the southern part of Florida. They are shallow lakes filled with trees." But the stranger could hardly live in such a place as that.
"No," answered Rod; "my plantation isn't old and it isn't Spanish; it's a farm, and quite new. I am over here now to get hands for it."
"Hands?"
"Yes, laborers—Italians. They work very well in Florida."