"Your wife!" repeated one of the women, and then, nothing abashed, added, "Who are you?"
"My name is Powers, madam," he answered very politely. This discovery evidently disconcerted the impudence even of these visitors, and they immediately left the studio.
As the day approached for my departure I visited all my old haunts, and dwelt fondly upon scenes which I might never see again. My dear old music-master cried when I bade him farewell. Povero maestro! He used to think me so good that I was always ashamed of not being a veritable angel. I left Florence when
All the land in flowery squares,
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,
Smelt of the coming summer.
My last visit was with the maestro to the Cascine, where he gathered me a bunch of wild violets—cherished souvenir of a city I love, and of a friend whose like I "ne'er may look upon again."
MARIE HOWLAND.
THE SOUTHERN PLANTER.
While Philadelphia hibernates in the ice and snow of February, the spring season opens in the Southern woods and pastures. The fragrant yellow jessamine clusters in golden bugles over shrubs and trees, and the sward is enameled with the white, yellow and blue violet. The crocus and cowslip, low anemone and colts-foot begin to show, and the land brightens with waxy flowers of the huckleberry, set in delicate gamboge edging. Yards, greeneries, conservatories breathe a June like fragrance, and aviaries are vocal with songsters, mocked outside by the American mocking-bird, who chants all night under the full moon, as if day was too short for his medley.