and enclosed in an ingenious variety of wooden palings.
The morning was brilliant and cool, the villas were smart and snug,
and the walk of the young travelers was very entertaining.
Everything looked as if it had received a coat of fresh paint
the day before--the red roofs, the green shutters, the clean,
bright browns and buffs of the housefronts. The flower beds
on the little lawns seemed to sparkle in the radiant air,
and the gravel in the short carriage sweeps to flash and twinkle.
Along the road came a hundred little basket phaetons, in which,
almost always, a couple of ladies were sitting--ladies in white
dresses and long white gloves, holding the reins and looking
at the two Englishmen, whose nationality was not elusive,
through thick blue veils tied tightly about their faces as if
to guard their complexions. At last the young men came within
sight of the sea again, and then, having interrogated a gardener
over the paling of a villa, they turned into an open gate.
Here they found themselves face to face with the ocean and with
a very picturesque structure, resembling a magnified chalet,
which was perched upon a green embankment just above it.
The house had a veranda of extraordinary width all around it
and a great many doors and windows standing open to the veranda.
These various apertures had, in common, such an accessible,
hospitable air, such a breezy flutter within of light curtains,
such expansive thresholds and reassuring interiors, that our friends
hardly knew which was the regular entrance, and, after hesitating
a moment, presented themselves at one of the windows.
The room within was dark, but in a moment a graceful figure
vaguely shaped itself in the rich-looking gloom, and a lady
came to meet them. Then they saw that she had been seated at
a table writing, and that she had heard them and had got up.