Much as the magnificence and comfort in-doors had astonished Malone, he was far more captivated by the beauty of the garden. Here were a vast variety of objects which he could thoroughly appreciate. The luxuriant vegetation, the fruit-trees bending under their fruit, the proffusion of rare and rich flowers, the trim order of the whole, that neatness which the inexperienced eye has seldom beheld, nor can, even when seeing, credit, struck him at every step; and then there were plants utterly new and strange to him--pines and pomegranates, and enormous gourds, streaked and variegated in gorgeous colours, and over and through all a certain pervading odour that distilled a sense of drowsy enjoyment very captivating. Never, perhaps, in his whole life, had he so fully brought home to him the glorious prerogative of wealth, that marvellous power that culls from life, one by one, every attribute that is pleasure-giving, and surrounds daily existence with whatever can charm or beguile. When he heard from the gardener that Sir Gervais seldom or never came there, he almost started, and some vague and shadowy doubt shot across his mind that rich men might not be so triumphantly blessed as he had just believed them. “Sure,” he muttered, “if he doesn’t see this he can’t enjoy it, and if he sees it so often that he doesn’t mind, it’s the same thing. I wondher, now, would that be possible, and would there ever come a time to myself when I wouldn’t think this was Paradise.” He was musing in this wise, when a merry burst of childish laughter startled him, and at the same instant a little girl bounded over a melon-frame and ran towards him. He drew aside, and took off his hat with respectful deference, when suddenly the child stopped, and burst into a ringing laugh, as she said, “Why, grandfather, don’t you know me?” Nor even then did he know her, such a marvellous change had been wrought in her by one of Ada’s dresses, and a blue ribbon that fastened her hair behind, and fell floating down her back with the rich golden tresses. “Sure it isn’t Kitty?” cried he, shading his eyes with his hand. “And why wouldn’t it be Kitty?” replied she, tartly, and piqued that her own attractions were not above all adventitious aid. “Is it a white frock makes me so grand that ye wouldn’t know me again?” “May I never,” cried he, “but I thought you was a young lady.” “Well, and what’s the differ, I wonder? If I look like one, couldn’t I be one?” “Ay, and do it well, too!” said he, while his eyes glistened with a look of triumph. “Come here, Kitty, darlin’,” said he, taking her hand, and leading her along at his side, “I want to spake a word to you. Now, Kitty, though you’re only a child, as one may say, you’ve more wit in your head nor many a grown woman, and if you hadn’t, it’s the heavy heart I’d have this day leavin’ you among strangers.”