“He does; but I had rather see him here.”
“You have fine scenery here, no doubt, and a climate which you enjoy: but there! what streets and palaces—what theatres—what libraries and picture-galleries—and what society!”
“Is it not true, however,” said Azua, “that all the world is alike to her where her brother is?”
“This is L’Étoile,” said Aimée. “Of all the country houses in the island, this was, not perhaps the grandest, but the most beautiful. It is now ruined; but we hear that enough remains for Monsieur Loisir to make out the design.”
She turned to Vincent, and told him that General Christophe was about to build a house; and that he wished it to be on the model of L’Étoile, as it was before the war. Monsieur Loisir was to furnish the design.
The Europeans of the party were glad to be told that they had nearly arrived at their resting place; for they could scarcely sit their horses, while toiling in the heat through the deep sand of the road. They had left far behind them both wood and swamp; and, though the mansion seemed to be embowered in the green shade, they had to cross open ground to reach it. At length Azua, who had sunk into a despairing silence, cried out with animation—
“Ha! the opuntia! what a fence! what a wall!”
“You may know every deserted house in the plain,” said Aimée, “by the cactus hedge round it.”
“What ornament can the inhabited mansion have more graceful, more beautiful?” said Azua, forgetting the heat in his admiration of the blossoms, some red, some snow-white, some blush-coloured, which were scattered in profusion over the thick and high cactus hedge which barred the path.
“Nothing can be more beautiful,” said Aimée, “but nothing more inconvenient. See, you are setting your horse’s feet into a trap.” And she pointed to the stiff, prickly green shoots which matted all the ground. “We must approach by some other way. Let us wait till the servants have gone round.”