I felt almost vexed to find that two such people as Paul and Virginia never really did exist, till the doctor laughed me back into my usual state of mind. "Fictitious sentiment I cannot abide," he observed. "There is quite enough of real sorrow and suffering in the world to excite our sympathies; and if we employ them on fiction, we are very apt to exhaust them before they can be employed to some useful end." The scenery at the foot of Pieter Bot is very fine, as, indeed, was all we passed through. It was only towards the evening that we reached my grandfather's estate of Eau Douce, or Sweet Water, as he called it. How my heart beat as our guide pointed out the house, a single-storied building with a wide verandah round it, standing in a garden filled with trees and shrubs of the most luxuriant growth, and of every variety of shape and colour. "Can Alfred himself be here?" I thought, as I eagerly jumped off my horse, and letting our negro guide take the reins, ran up the steps to the front door. The doctor followed slowly. Though the door was open, I did not like to go in. I waited and waited, and rang two or three times, and no one came. At last I heard a shuffling in the passage, and an old black man, dressed in a white shirt and trousers and yellow slippers, made his appearance. In broken English, with a French accent, he asked me what I wanted. I told him. "Oh, Master Coventry! He gone away--no come back for one year, two years, or more," he replied, with a grin. I asked him if he knew where Mr Coventry was gone. His notions of geography were limited; he could not tell. I felt very dispirited. "But I am his grandson. Is there no one here who can tell me about him?" I exclaimed. The negro looked at me hard. "Oh yes, there is Mr Ricama, the steward; he will tell you all about the master," he answered. "Come in, gentlemen, come in." The doctor said, however, that he would prefer waiting under the shade of the balcony till invited to enter by the officer in command. I accordingly followed the old black, who showed me into a cool sitting-room, the floors covered with matting, and furnished with cane-bottomed sofas and marble tables, the windows opening to the ground looking out on the sea, whence a delicious breeze came blowing freshly in. In a short time a tall, dark-skinned man, in a light calico dress, and with straw hat in hand, came into the room. He bowed as he entered, and advanced towards me. "I am the overseer here left in charge by Mr Coventry, whose grandson I understand you are," he said in very good English. "I shall be glad to do everything you may wish which is in my power." "Thank you," I answered. "First, then, tell me where Mr Coventry is; I am most anxious to see him." "That is a very difficult question to answer," he replied. "I can tell you where he was when I last heard from him; but where he now is I cannot say, and where he may be in another month no man can tell."