The sight of his house, pillared and stately, on the summit of the graceful rise, was always a pleasure, and while strolling about, with no intention of calling (having, doubtless, called the day before), I kept it in view, for my eyes were never weary with looking upon it, so white and peaceful. It was not a palace, not really a mansion, and in the rich communities of the North it would not have been noteworthy except as a sort of quaint renaissance in home building, but to me it had not been set there by the hand of man, but by the Genii of the Lamp. Upon calling one afternoon, I was told by the negro woman that the Senator was asleep, and, not wishing to have him disturbed, I walked out into the garden, where Washington was at work among the flowers. With the instinct of his race, he was humming a tune, and he did not hear me until I spoke to him, and then, uplifting his hand with a sign of caution, he pointed at a tree not far away. My eyes leaped to follow him, for I felt that the young woman was near, and there on a bench she sat, her head against the tree, her hat on the ground--asleep. "Don't make a noise," he said, in tones but little louder than a whisper. "Sarah, the colored woman there in the house, say--says the young lady didn't sleep hardly at all last night, and she went to sleep out there just now." "She isn't ill, is she?" I asked. "Sick? No, Sir, she is well, but she's got to sleep some time. How do you like my flowers?" "They are very beautiful." "Yes, Sir, but don't talk quite so loud. Seems to me like you are trying to wake her up. I didn't want to take money for this work," he went on, bending over and pulling up a weed, "for I like to do it, but they insist on paying me. Yes, Sir. And I reckon--I suppose we have here the finest clump of magnolias in all this part of the country. This one, right here, was set out the day Miss Florence was born, twenty-four years ago, now." "And it is the most graceful tree of them all," I replied. He cut his black eyes at me. "Yes, Sir, I believe it is, but, even if it wasn't, you might say it was. I beg your pardon, Sir, but you just as well board here. Oh, all the whole human family is not blind. If the rest of them are, I'm not." "Look here, Washington." "I'm looking, Sir," he said, his eyes full upon me. "You were very kind to me, and I am grateful, but I don't want your guardianship, and I won't have your insinuations."