There was a gum-tree, under the shade of which Paul was accustomed to
sit, to contemplate the sea when agitated by storms. On the bark of this
tree, I engraved the following lines from Virgil:--

Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes!

"Happy are thou, my son, in knowing only the pastoral divinities."

And over the door of Madame de la Tour's cottage where the families so
frequently met, I placed this line:--

At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita.

"Here dwell a calm conscience, and a life that knows not deceit."

But Virginia did not approve of my Latin: she said, that what I had
placed at the foot of her flagstaff was too long and too learned. "I
should have liked better," added she, "to have seen inscribed, EVER
AGITATED, YET CONSTANT."--"Such a motto," I answered, "would have been
still more applicable to virtue." My reflection made her blush.

The delicacy of sentiment of these happy families was manifested in
every thing around them. They gave the tenderest names to objects
in appearance the most indifferent. A border of orange, plantain and
rose-apple trees, planted round a green sward where Virginia and Paul
sometimes danced, received the name of Concord. An old tree, beneath
the shade of which Madame de la Tour and Margaret used to recount their
misfortunes, was called the Burial-place of Tears. They bestowed the
names of Brittany and Normandy on two little plots of ground, where they
had sown corn, strawberries, and peas. Domingo and Mary, wishing, in