“And many a dim o’erarching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove;
And terraced lawns, whose bright cascades
The honeysuckle sweetly shades;
And rocks whose very crags seem bowers,
So gay they are with grass and flowers.”

It was a delightful breakfast with the merry party at Escondido as they sat under the wide, cool piazza in the shade, with the sun throwing his slanting rays through the vines and clusters of purple grapes, and through the orange-trees, where the yellow fruit was fast losing its fragrant dew––all the men once more in summer rig, and the ladies in flowing muslin and tidy caps.

“My dear,” said Piron to his wife, “we have lost one of our guests, Colonel Lawton; he went away at daylight this morning, and left a message to me, and compliments to you all, that business of importance, which he had forgotten, demanded his immediate return to Kingston.”

There was no sorrow expressed by the lady or her fair sister, and even the men treated it with indifference, except Mr. Burns, who remarked, as he snapped a tooth-pick in twain, that, for his part, he was glad the fellow had gone; he didn’t like his looks at all, though he did make himself so fascinating to the beautiful widow who sat next him.

“Ah! Monsieur Burns, think you I would prefer a scarlet coat when––”

“You might get a blue!” broke in Paddy, with a comical twinkle of his eye, as he winked in the direction of Commodore Cleveland, who sat opposite.

“No, no,” exclaimed the pretty widow, hastily, as she shook her finger at her despairing admirer, “that is not what I was going to say––when those red coats there from England killed my poor husband at Quatre Bras.”

“Ah! yes, my dear––bad luck to them! But an Irishman would never have been so cruel, you know, though, ’pon me sowl,” went on Paddy, as he stuck a fork in an orange and began to divest it of its 253 peel, West India fashion, to present it to the matron beside him, “I fear I should like to kill any man who loved ye, Madame Nathalie, myself.”

“What a droll man you are, Monsieur Burns,” replied the widow, laughing outright, “when you know you would prefer a jug of Antigua punch, any day, to me. Stop, now! didn’t you say, at your grand dinner in Kingston, that you would never allow a woman to darken your doors?”

“I––a meant––a black woman, my dear; as true as me name’s Paddy Burns, I did!”