"We must go down and see that beautiful bay, Helen—Miss Hudson, I mean—beg pardon"——
"We have not time, Mr Brail, to-day; we must return, as my father wishes us to visit some beautiful scenery in the woods; but we shall ride to it another forenoon—only, why will you distress yourself about calling me Helen—why, I am Helen—every body calls me Helen—with your precise Miss Hudson, and Mademoiselle Duquesné. If you stick to such formalities, I will positively treat you to a few calculations and guessings." Here the laughing girl gave the true nasal twang of Jonathan himself.
"Well, well—agreed—Helen you shall be—my Helen." She looked at me, and blushing, held up her finger, and shook her head—as if she had said—"No, no,—not quite yet." My heart stopped a beat to gather strength, and then gave such a devil of a bounce—"Hillo," thought I—"Ha, ha, Master Benjamin!"
We therefore returned homewards, and having extended our ride in another direction, and been highly gratified by the scenery, we found ourselves seated at dinner, in the lower piazza of the court facing the east, so as to be screened from the rays of the setting sun by the roof of the house.
The water of the clear pool in the centre of the yard was led away, on the side we sat on, in a little canal, amongst the rocks, out of which it was hewn, and this was thickly planted with lotuses. We had dined, and the golden sky overhead began to be spangled with a bright silver star here and there, and the distant and scarcely perceptible buzz of a solitary scout of a musquitto, would every now and then suddenly increase to a loud singing noise, as he reconnoitred your auricle—presently you heard the hum of a whole picket of them—the advanced guard of a host of winged pests, which were thus giving token of the approach of evening.
"Master Hudson," quoth Listado again—"you have a beautiful situation here, certainly; magnificent scenery, and a good house; fine water, and pure air—but a damnable quantity of musquittoes—beg, pardon, ladies, for the lapse—yet really, just as I am expatiating, one of those devils has flown into my eye, half-a-dozen into my mouth, and—Lord, if a big fellow has not got into my ear, and is at this identical moment thundering away at the timpanum, ay, as if he were a bass drummer!" Here our friend started up, and began to dance about and shake his head, as if he would have cast it from his shoulders into the pool.
"Mr Brail," said Helen, laughing, as soon as the Irishman had subsided—"do you see how carefully those beautiful water-lilies have folded up their silver leaves before retiring to their watery pillows?—there, that one nearest your foot has already sunk below the water; and the largest, that is still gently moved by the small ripple that radiates from the splashing water in the middle of the basin, will soon follow—See, it is gone"—as, one by one, the whole of the beautiful plants gradually sank under the surface for the night.
I was struck with this, and fascinated by the tone and manner of the speaker;—when suddenly the lotuses again emerged.
"Heyday," said De Walden—"your poetry is all lost, Miss Hudson; the flowers don't seem to sleep sound on the watery pillows you spoke of—they are as gallant and complimentary as Don Lorenzo there; for see, they are all back to have another peep at you."
"Probably they found their beds were not made, De Walden," rapped out Listado.