I assure my aunt it must be a dream,
come to punish her for indulging in two goes of her favourite sweet at
dinner; but in my heart I shouldn't wonder if it's true. The whole lot
of us, in our family, are romantic and superstitious. We can't help it
and don't want to help it, though we suffer for our foolishness often
enough, goodness knows."
The scent of orange blossoms and acacias was poignantly sweet, as the
car passed an Arab lodge, and wound slowly up an avenue cut through a
grove of blossoming trees. The utmost pains had been taken in the laying
out of the garden, but an effect of carelessness had been preserved. The
place seemed a fairy tangle of white and purple lilacs, gold-dripping
laburnums, acacias with festoons of pearl, roses looping from orange
tree to mimosa, and a hundred gorgeous tropical flowers like painted
birds and butterflies. In shadowed nooks under dark cypresses, glimmered
arum lilies, sparkling with the diamond dew that sprayed from carved
marble fountains, centuries old; and low seats of marble mosaiced with
rare tiles stood under magnolia trees or arbours of wistaria. Giant
cypresses, tall and dark as a band of Genii, marched in double line on
either side the avenue as it straightened and turned towards the house.
White in the distance where that black procession halted, glittered the
old Arab palace, built in one long facade, and other facades smaller,
less regular, looking like so many huge blocks of marble grouped
together.
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