An interpreter? You needn't ask me. I'm not in charge. Ask my aunt here; but she herself can talk many languages. Or ask that tall brawny Scot, who is hustling the darkies about as if South America all belonged to him.
'A carriage, Moncrieff? Oh, this is delightful! Auntie, dear, let me help you on board. Hop in, Dugald. Jump, Donald. No, no, Moncrieff, I mean to have the privilege of sitting beside the driver. Off we go. Hurrah! Do you like it, Donald? But aren't the streets rough! I won't talk any more; I want to watch things.'
I wonder, though, if Paradise itself was a bit more lovely than the gardens we catch glimpses of as we drive along?
How cool they look, though the sun is shining in a blue and cloudless sky! What dark shadows those gently waving palm-trees throw! Look at those cottage verandahs! Look, oh, look at the wealth of gorgeous flowers—the climbing, creeping, wreathing flowers! What colours! What fantastic shapes! What a merry mood Nature must have been in when she framed them so! And the perfume from those fairy gardens hangs heavy on the air; the delicious balmy breeze that blows through the green, green palm-leaves is not sufficient to waft away the odour of that orange blossom. Behold those beautiful children in groups, on terraces and lawns, at windows, or in verandahs—so gaily are they dressed that they themselves might be mistaken for bouquets of lovely flowers!
I wonder what the names of all those strange blossom-bearing shrubs are. But, bah! who would bother about names of flowers on a day like this? The butterflies do 83 not, and the bees do not. Are those really butterflies, though—really and truly? Are they not gorgeously painted fans, waved and wafted by fairies, themselves unseen?
The people we meet chatter gaily as we pass, but they do not appear to possess a deal of curiosity; they are too contented for anything. All life here must be one delicious round of enjoyment. And nobody surely ever dies here; I do not see how they could.
'Is this a cave we are coming to, Moncrieff? What is that long row of columns and that high, green, vaulted roof, through which hardly a ray of sunshine can struggle? Palm-trees! Oh, Moncrieff, what glorious palms! And there is life upon life there, for the gorgeous trees, not apparently satisfied with their own magnificence of shape and foliage, must array themselves in wreaths of dazzling orchids and festoons of trailing flowers. The fairies must have hung those flowers there? Do not deny it, Moncrieff!'
And here, in the Botanical Gardens, imagination must itself be dumb—such a wild wealth of all that is charming in the vegetable and animal creation.
'Donald, go your own road. Dugald, go yours; let us wander alone. We may meet again some day. It hardly matters whether we do or not. I'm in a dream, and I don't think I want to awaken for many a long year.'
I go wandering away from my brothers, away from every one.