"Isn't it lovely? We shall have a nobler capital city than Washington, with its horrid red streets, its wilderness of bare squares, its interminable distances—"
"Carcassonne," Jack murmured.
"Carcassonne—what's that?"
"An exquisite bit of verse and a touching story. I——"
"There, there—stop. You are talking again. You shall read the poem to me—that is, if it isn't a glorification of the North."
"No; Carcassonne was a city of the South."
"Really—you must not talk. I'm not going to open my lips again until we get to the boat."
She settled back in her place and took out a book, looking over the top at him from time to time. The motion of the vehicle, the warmth of the day, and the odorous breath of flowers and shrubs gradually dulled his mischievous spirits, and he slept tranquilly until the carriage drew up at the wharf at Harrison's Landing, whence, taken on a primitive ferry, they in an hour or more arrived at a long wooden pier extending into the river. It was nearly six o'clock when the carriage entered a solemn aisle of pines ending in a labyrinth of oleanders and the tropic-like plants of the South. Then an old-fashioned porticoed mansion came into view, and on signal from the driver a posse of colored servants came trooping out noisily to carry the invalid in. Mrs. Atterbury was on the veranda, and stepped down to the carriage to welcome the guest. She greeted him with the affectionate cordiality of a mother, and asked:
"How have you borne the fatigue? I hope Rosa hasn't let you talk?"
"If I may speak now it will be to bear testimony that I have been made a mummy since noon. I haven't been permitted to ask the local habitation or name of the scenic delights that have made the journey a panorama of beauty and my guide a tyrant, to whom, by comparison, Caligula was a tender master!"