At supper we met again, and after supper, when she had put little Tota, to whom she had grown much attached, to bed, we went out, leaving Mr.Carson dozing on the couch.
The night was warm and lovely, and without speaking we walked up the garden to the orange grove and sat down upon a rock.

There was a little breeze which shook the petals of the orange blooms over us in showers, and bore their delicate fragrance far and wide.

Silence reigned around, broken only by the sound of the falling waterfalls that now died to a faint murmur, and now, as the wavering breeze turned, boomed loudly in our ears.

The moon was not yet visible, but already the dark clouds which floated through the sky above us--for there had been rain--showed a glow of silver, telling us that she shone brightly behind the peak.
Stella began to talk in her low, gentle voice, speaking to me of her life in the wilderness, how she had grown to love it, how her mind had gone on from idea to idea, and how she pictured the great rushing world that she had never seen as it was reflected to her from the books which she had read.

It was a curious vision of life that she had: things were out of proportion to it; it was more like a dream than a reality--a mirage than the actual face of things.