The house and barn were painted (colonial yellow) without a moment's
delay. An ornamental piazza was added, all the paths were broadened and
graveled, and even terraces were dreamed of, as I recalled the terraces
where Lord Beaconsfield's peacocks used to sun themselves and display
their beauties--Queen Victoria now has a screen made of their feathers.

My expensive pets felt their degradation in spite of my best efforts and
determined to sever their connection with such a plebeian place.

Beauty (I ought to have called him Absalom or Alcibiades), as soon as
let out of his traveling box, displayed to an admiring crowd a tail so
long it might be called a "serial," gave one contemptuous glance at the
premises, and departed so rapidly, by running and occasional flights,
that three men and a boy were unable to catch up with him for several
hours. Belle was not allowed her liberty, as we saw more trouble ahead.
A large yard, inclosed top and sides with wire netting, at last
restrained their roving ambition. But they were not happy. Peacocks
disdain a "roost" and seek the top of some tall tree; they are also
rovers by nature and hate confinement. They pined and failed, and seemed
slowly dying; so I had to let them out. Total cost of peacock hunts by
the boys of the village, $11.33. I found that Beauty was happy only when
admiring himself, or deep in mischief. His chief delight was to mount
the stone wall, and utter his raucous note, again and again, as a
carriage passed, often scaring the horses into dangerous antics, and
causing severe, if not profane criticism. Or he would steal slyly into a
neighbor's barn and kill half a dozen chickens at a time. He was awake
every morning by four o'clock, and would announce the glories of the
coming dawn by a series of ear-splitting notes, disturbing not only all
my guests, but the various families within range, until complaints and