He threw himself on the bed and tried to sleep; but memory was too busy with the scene of enchantment he had recently left.  A catalpa-tree threw its shadow on the moon-lighted curtain.  He began to count the wavering leaves, in hopes the monotonous occupation would induce slumber.  After a while he forgot to count; and as his spirit hovered between the inner and the outer world, Floracita seemed to be dancing on the leaf shadows in manifold graceful evolutions.  Then he was watching a little trickling fountain, and the falling drops were tones of “The Light of other Days.”  Anon he was wandering among flowers in the moonlight, and from afar some one was heard singing “Casta Diva.”  The memory of that voice,

    “While slept the limbs and senses all,
    Made everything seem musical.”

Again and again the panorama of the preceding evening revolved through the halls of memory with every variety of fantastic change.  A light laugh broke in upon the scenes of enchantment, with the words, “Of course not, for she was a quadroon.”  Then the plaintive melody of “Toll the bell” resounded in his ears; not afar off, but loud and clear, as if the singer were in the room.  He woke with a start, and heard the vibrations of a cathedral bell subsiding into silence.  It had struck but twice, but in his spiritual ear the sounds had been modulated through many tones.  “Even thus strangely,” thought he, “has that rich, sonorous voice struck into the dream of my life,”

Again he saw those large, lustrous eyes lowering their long-fringed veils under the ardent gaze of Gerald Fitzgerald.  Again he thought of his mother, and sighed.  At last a dreamless sleep stole over him, and both pleasure and pain were buried in deep oblivion.

CHAPTER II.

The sun was up before he woke.  He rose hastily and ordered breakfast and a horse; for he had resolved the day before upon an early ride.  A restless, undefined feeling led him in the same direction he had taken the preceding evening.  He passed the house that would forevermore be a prominent feature in the landscape of his life.  Vines were gently waving in the morning air between the pillars of the piazza, where he had lingered entranced to hear the tones of “Buena Notte.”  The bright turban of Tulipa was glancing about, as she dusted the blinds.  A peacock on the balustrade, in the sunshine, spread out his tail into a great Oriental fan, and slowly lowered it, making a prismatic shower of topaz, sapphires, and emeralds as it fell.  It was the first of March; but as he rode on, thinking of the dreary landscape and boisterous winds of New England at that season, the air was filled with the fragrance of flowers, and mocking-birds and thrushes saluted him with their songs.  In many places the ground was thickly strewn with oranges, and the orange-groves were beautiful with golden fruit and silver flowers gleaming among the dark glossy green foliage.  Here and there was the mansion of a wealthy planter, surrounded by whitewashed slave-cabins.  The negroes at their work, and their black picaninnies rolling about on the ground, seemed an appropriate part of the landscape, so tropical in its beauty of dark colors and luxuriant growth.