I rode with Jack afterwards, showing him where I wish paths to be cut and brushwood removed.  I passed the new house, and again circumvented it meditatingly to discover its available points of possible future comeliness, but remained as convinced as ever that there are absolutely none.  Within the last two days, a perfect border of the dark blue Virginicum has burst into blossom on each side of the road, fringing it with purple as far as one can look along it; it is lovely.  I must tell you of something which has delighted me greatly.  I told Jack yesterday, that if any of the boys liked, when they had done their tasks, to come and clear the paths that I want widened and trimmed, I would pay them a certain small sum per hour for their labour; and behold, three boys have come, having done their tasks early in the afternoon, to apply for work and wages:  so much for a suggestion not barely twenty-four hours old, and so much for a prospect of compensation!

In the evenings I attempted to walk out when the air was cool, but had to run precipitately back into the house to escape from the clouds of sand-flies that had settled on my neck and arms.  The weather has suddenly become intensely hot; at least, that is what it appears to me.  After I had come in I had a visit from Venus and her daughter, a young girl of ten years old, for whom she begged a larger allowance of food as, she said, what she received for her was totally inadequate to the girl’s proper nourishment.  I was amazed, upon enquiry, to find that three quarts of grits a week—­that is not a pint a day—­was considered a sufficient supply for children of her age.  The mother said her child was half-famished on it, and it seemed to me terribly little.

My little workmen have brought me in from the woods three darling little rabbits which they have contrived to catch.  They seemed to me slightly different from our English bunnies; and Captain F——­, who called to-day, gave me a long account of how they differed from the same animal in the northern States.  I did not like to mortify my small workmen by refusing their present; but the poor little things must be left to run wild again, for we have no conveniences for pets here, besides we are just weighing anchor ourselves.  I hope these poor little fluffy things will not meet any rattlesnakes on their way back to the woods.

I had a visit for flannel from one of our Dianas to-day,—­who had done her task in the middle of the day, yet came to receive her flannel,—­the most horribly dirty human creature I ever beheld, unless indeed her child, whom she brought with her, may have been half a degree dirtier.