CHAPTER III.

Esmerelda.

The next morning I was early astir.  I was eager to explore the grounds around Oaklands, as well as the beaches and caves where the waves penetrated far under the rocks at high tide.  The grounds I found very extensive—­in places almost like some of the old English parks which I had seen on my visits there to distant relatives during the holidays.  It was pleasant to think while wandering under the trees, and over the splendid wastes of flowers, and ornamental shrubs, and trees, that in this wide, vast America no one need be defrauded of his portion of mother earth by this immense flower garden; since there was more than sufficient land for every anxious toiler.  To me there was an exceeding luxury in this reflection; for often on those lovely Kentish estates where I had visited, my heart had been grieved by the extremes of wealth and squalor.  Pinched-faced women and children gazing hungrily through park gates at the flowers, and fountains, and all the beauty within, while they had no homes worthy the name, and alas! no flowers or fountains to gladden their beauty hungered hearts.  My friends used to smile at my saddened face as I looked in these other human faces with a pitying sense of sisterhood, that was strange to them; but they humored my desire to try and gladden these lives so limited in their happy allotments, by gifts of rare flowers and choice fruits.  But I used to find the old-fashioned flowers, that the gardeners grumbled least over my plucking, were the most welcome.

At luncheon I came in, my hair sea-blown from my visit to the rocks, and my face finely burnt by the combined influence of wind and sun.  I expressed to Mrs. Flaxman a desire to visit my new acquaintance on the Mill Road.  I noticed a peculiar uplifting of the eyebrows as I glanced towards Hubert.

“It will be something entirely new in Mill Road experience to have a friendly call from one of our Cavendish elite.”

“Why, Hubert,” his mother remonstrated, “it is not an unusual thing for our friends to visit the poor and sick on the Mill Road, as well as in the other humbler districts.”

“Doubtless, but in much the same fashion as Queen Elizabeth used to visit her subjects—­mere royal progresses, more bother than blessing.  Miss Selwyn, I fancy, will go there in a friendly sort of way, that even Dan will appreciate.”

“Oh, thank you, Hubert; but possibly, if I quite comprehended your meaning, I should be more provoked than complimented.”

“Well, if I was one of the poor ones I would like your visits best.  I would be willing to dispense with the dignity for sake of the friendliness that would recognize that I too had a common brotherhood with the highest as well as the lowest.”

“Ah, I comprehend your meaning now, and I won’t get angry with you.  I think I must be a changeling, in spirit probably; there could be no mistake, I presume, in my physical identity, but my heart always claims kindred most with the lean, hungry faces.”