All round in the neighbourhood of St. Augustine are lovely orange groves, and long avenues with cedar hedges, and grand old mulberry trees with gnarled and knotted trunks, and heavy branches, that look as antiquated as the city itself. Being desirous of entering into, and spending a little time in the inspection of some one of the many noted orange groves, we were directed to one owned by a prominent citizen, who would, we were assured, “make us right welcome;” and armed with cards of introduction we took our way to his residence. Passing along a magnificent avenue of stately trees, which bordered his extensive grounds, and closed above our heads shutting the sunlight out, we came to the large iron entrance gate. There was a bell, and we rang it, but nobody answered it except a large white cat, who emerged from a shrubbery, and rubbed against the gate purring and arching her back ingratiatingly as if inviting us to enter. Finding no response except this feline welcome, we pushed open the gate and walked up to the house, the cat purring a congratulatory purr at our heels as if she was very glad indeed that we had come. We ascended the “stoop” (_Anglicè_, door steps), and rang the hall-door bell. No answer. We amused ourselves ringing at intervals; and when we were tired of tinkling the bell, which seemed to wake sepulchral echoes, we started on a tour of inspection around the house. It seemed as dead asleep as the Sleeping Beauty; its eyes were all shut, the sun-blinds all rigorously closed. There were seats on the piazza, and we rested for a while in the fragrant shadow of a great apoppinac tree, whose showers of dainty yellow blossoms fell like an odorous golden rain upon the grass, while the fairy flowers of the azalea, light as drifted snow-flakes, stirred as if breathing soft mysteries in the whispering balmy breeze. Meanwhile the cat jumped up on my lap and went to sleep, until we started afresh on an exploration of the grounds; then our feline friend escorted us, her comfortable and contented purr allaying the apprehensions of ferocious mastiffs which invariably beset us in strange quarters, though our secondary dread of steel man-traps, set for more harmful intruders than ourselves, kept us cautiously within the boundaries of the gravel walks.