This stately rejection of so small and, as it were, self-made a pun entertained her companion highly; it showed how unfamiliar she was with the usual commonplaces. Talking with her would be not unlike talking with a princess in a fairy tale--one of those who have always lived mysteriously imprisoned in a tower; such a damsel, regarding her own rank, would be apt to have a standard which might strike the first comer as fantastically high. His entertainment, however, was not visible as, with a demeanor modelled upon the requirements of her dignity, he bent back the thorny bushes of the green cape, and made a passageway for her round its point. When his little roadway was finished, she came over it with her leisurely step, as though (he said to himself) it and the whole world, including his own poor individuality, belonged to her by inherited right, whenever she should choose to claim them. He was well aware that he was saying to himself a good many things about this girl; but was it not natural--coming unexpectedly upon so much beauty, set in so unfamiliar a frame? It was a new portrait, and he was fond of portraits; in picture-galleries he always looked more at the portraits than at anything else. On the opposite side of the thorny cape the ruin came into view, standing back in a little arena of its own. Two of its high stone walls remained upright, irregularly broken at the top, and over them clambered a vine with slender leaves and long curling sprays that thrust themselves boldly out into the air, covered with bell-shaped, golden blossoms. This was the yellow jessamine, the lovely wild jessamine of Florida. "You will look at it, please, from the other side," announced Garda; "it looks best from there. There will not be time to sketch it." "Why do you keep taking it for granted that I sketch? Do I look like an artist?" "Oh no; I've never seen an artist, but I'm sure you don't look like one. I suppose you sketch simply because I suppose northerners can do everything; I shall be fearfully disappointed if they cannot--when I see them." "Do you wish to see them?" "I wish to see hundreds," answered Miss Thorne, with great deliberation, "I wish to see thousands. I wish to see them at balls; I have never seen a ball. I wish to see them driving in parks; I have never seen a park. I wish to see them climbing mountains; I have never seen a mountain--" "They don't do it in droves, you know," interpolated her companion. "--I wish to see them in the halls of Congress; I have never seen Congress. I wish to see them at the Springs; I have never seen Springs. I wish to see them wearing diamonds; I have never seen diamonds--" "The last is a wish easily gratified. In America, as one may say, the diamond's the only wear," remarked Winthrop, taking out a little linen-covered book.