Cinthia, with her golden head one side like a bird, cogitated a moment, then decided on a long drive into the country.
The carriage was ordered, and in a short while they were resting luxuriously among the cushions, while a typical Florida darky handled the reins, and sent the handsome black ponies spinning at a lively rate along the road, past glistening orange-groves laden with golden globes of fruit, and lovely homes where art and nature combined to make an earthly paradise.
“Take us a new route,” Madame Ray had said to him and he had chosen a most attractive one, keeping them keenly interested all the while, until about three miles out, Cinthia called to him, saying:
“Let the ponies rest a minute, Uncle Rube, while you tell us about those picturesque ruins over there.”
They had just come opposite the remains of a once palatial mansion that had been destroyed by fire, one of the long stone wings still standing, a melancholy, dismantled ruin through which voices of the past might fitly echo with the raving of the night-winds. Around it were neglected lawns and gardens, the shrubbery growing in rank luxuriance about the broken fountains, whose tinkling waters had once laughed in the sun. An air of neglect, desertion and dreariness hung about the place, in spite of all the brightness of the day and scene, that sent a chill through the hearts of the gazers.
“What a magnificent place this must once have been, and what a pity it has not been rebuilt! Who owns it, Uncle Rube?” inquired Madame Ray, with deep interest, and the old man said, with conscious pride:
“It b’longs to we—all—all dat’s leff ob ole marster’s fam’bly dat I use to b’long to. Dis place used to be de country-seat ob de fam’bly, tell three years agone, when it burned down, and de mistis moved ’way off to Virginia to anurr gran’ place she had called Idlewhiles.”
Madame Ray and Cinthia both started violently, and looked significantly at each other.
Then the actress recovered herself, and whispered:
“A mere coincidence. Dozens of places are called Idlewild.”