Here, for the first time, they saw the menure, or lyre-bird, whose tail has the form of the graceful instrument of Orpheus.
NATURE AND ART.
It was like that of all intelligent and active young Englishmen, who do not believe that the possession of riches absolves from the responsibility to labor for the welfare of others. Michael and Alexander Patterson were the sons of a London banker. When they were twenty years old, their father had said: "Here is money, my sons. Go to some distant land, found there a useful establishment, and acquire in labor the knowledge of life. If you succeed, so much the better; if you fail, it matters little. We shall not regret the money that will have enabled you to become men." They obeyed; they chose the province of Victoria as the place to sow the paternal bank-notes, and had no reason to repent. At the end of three years their establishment had attained its present prosperity.
They had just finished the brief account of their career, when the dwelling came in sight at the end of a fine avenue of trees. It was a charming house of wood and brick, surrounded by clusters of plants, and had the elegant form of a Swiss cottage, while a veranda, from which hung Chinese lanterns, encircled it like a Roman impluvium. The windows were shaded by brilliant-colored awnings, which at a distance looked almost like masses of flowers. Nothing could be prettier, cozier, or pleasanter to the sight. On the lawn and among the shrubbery round about stood bronze candelabra, supporting elegant lamps with glass globes, which at nightfall illumined the whole garden with a beauteous light.
No farm-hands, stables, or outhouses were to be seen,—nothing that indicated scenes of toil. The dwellings of the workmen—a regular village, consisting of some twenty cottages—were a quarter of a mile distant, in the heart of a little valley. Telegraph-wires secured immediate communication between the village and the house of the proprietors, which, far from all tumult, was in truth "a thing of beauty."
The avenue was soon passed. A little iron bridge, of great elegance, crossing a murmuring stream, gave access to the private grounds. A courteous attendant advanced to meet the travelers; the doors of the house were opened, and the guests of Hottam Station entered the sumptuous dwelling.
All the luxuries of refined and civilized life seemed to be present. Into the vestibule, which was adorned with decorative subjects, illustrating the turf or the chase, opened a spacious parlor, lighted with five windows. A piano, covered with classic and modern music; easels, upon which were half-finished paintings; marble statues, mounted on tasteful pedestals; on the walls, a few pictures by Flemish masters; rich carpets, soft to the feet as grassy meadows; panels of tapestry, descriptive of pleasing mythological episodes; an antique chandelier, costly chinaware, delicate vases, and a great variety of articles of virtù, indicated a high appreciation of beauty and comfort. Everything that could please, everything that could relieve the tedium of a voluntary exile, everything that could remind one of a luxurious European home, was to be found in this fairy abode. It would have been easy to imagine oneself in some princely castle of England, France, or Germany.
The five windows admitted, through delicate curtains, a light tempered and softened by the shadows of the veranda. Lady Helena looked out, and was astonished. The house, upon this side, commanded the view of a broad valley, which extended to the eastern mountains. The alternation of meadow and woodland, broken here and there by vast clearings, the graceful sweep of the hill-sides, and the outlines of the entire landscape, formed a picture beyond the power of description. This vast panorama, intersected by broad bands of light and shade, changed every hour with the progress of the sun.
In the mean time, in accordance with the hosts' orders, breakfast had been prepared by the steward of the station, and in less than a quarter of an hour the travelers were seated at a bountiful table. The quality of the viands and the wines was unexceptionable; but what was especially gratifying, in the midst of these refinements of wealth, was the evident pleasure experienced by the young settlers in dispensing to strangers, beneath their own roof, this magnificent hospitality.