For when a friend talks to you
on the trot, much gulping doth impede his conversation,--and there is
even a good deal of wallop in a young lady's gallop. But our friend's
musical Spanish ran on like a brook with no stones in it, that merely
talks to the moonlight for company. And such moonlight as it was that
rained down upon us, except where the palm-trees spread their inverted
parasols, and wouldn't let it! And such a glorification of all trees
and shrubs, including the palm, which we are almost afraid to call
again by name, lest it should grow "stuck up," and imagine there were
no other trees but itself! And such a combination of tropical silence,
warmth, and odor! Even in the night, we did not forget that the
aloe-hedges had red in them, which made all the ways beautiful by day.
Oh! it was what good Bostonians call "a lovely time"; and it was with a
sigh of fulness that we set down the goblet of enjoyment, drained to
the last drop, and getting, somehow, always sweeter towards the bottom.
For it was set down at the Ensor House, which we are to leave to-night,
half-regretful at not having seen the scorpion by which we always
expected to be bitten; for we had heard such accounts of it, patrolling
the galleries with its venomous tail above its head, that we had
thought a sight might be worth a bite.
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