I shall not attempt to describe the azaleas at Live Oaks. You will understand me quite well, I am sure, when I say that I had heard the people at Mrs. Trevise’s house talk so much about them, and praise them so superlatively, that I was not prepared for much: my experience of life had already included quite a number of azaleas. Moreover, my meeting with Hortense and Charley had taken me far away from flowers. But when that marvelous place burst upon me, I forgot Hortense. I have seen gardens, many gardens, in England, in France; in Italy; I have seen what can be done in great hothouses, and on great terraces; what can be done under a roof, and what can be done in the open air with the aid of architecture and sculpture and ornamental land and water; but no horticulture that I have seen devised by mortal man approaches the unearthly enchantment of the azaleas at Live Oaks. It was not like seeing flowers at all; it was as if there, in the heart of the wild and mystic wood, in the gray gloom of those trees veiled and muffled in their long webs and skeins of hanging moss, a great, magic flame of rose and red and white burned steadily. You looked to see it vanish; you could not imagine such a thing would stay. All idea of individual petals or species was swept away in this glowing maze of splendor, this transparent labyrinth of rose and red and white, through which you looked beyond, into the gray gloom of the hanging moss and the depths of the wild forest trees. I turned back as often as I could, and to the last I caught glimpses of it, burning, glowing, and shining like some miracle, some rainbow exorcism, with its flooding fumes of orange-rose and red and white, merging magically. It was not until I reached the landing, and made my way on board again, that Hortense returned to my thoughts. She hadn’t come to see the miracle; not she! I knew that better than ever. And who was the other man in the launch? “Wasn’t it perfectly elegant!” exclaimed the up-country bride. And upon my assenting, she made a further declaration to David: “It’s just aivry bit as good as the Isle of Champagne.” This I discovered to be a comic opera, mounted with spendthrift brilliance, which David had taken her to see at the town of Gonzales, just before they were married. As we made our way down the bending river she continued to make many observations to me in that up-country accent of hers, which is a fashion of speech that may be said to differ as widely from the speech of the low-country as cotton differs from rice. I began to fear that, in spite of my truly good intentions, I was again failing to be as “attentive” as the occasion demanded; and so I presented her with my floral tribute. She was immediately arch. “I’d surely be depriving somebody!” and on this I got to the full her limpid look. I assured her that this would not be so, and pointed to the other flowers I had.