We were sitting on the vine-covered terrace of our beautiful South American home. Below us the bright flowers of our tropical garden shone a blaze of colour against the dark background of the lemon-trees; away to the right stretched the dazzling blue sea, with here and there the dark sail of a native fishing craft; while to the left rose the white houses of the little Spanish town of San Carlos, with its picturesque, Moorish-looking church and campanile, set in a frame of tall palm-trees, which led the eye over the long slopes of the coffee-plantations up the hill-side to where the sharp peaks of the sierras towered like giants against the cloudless sky. For ten years I had lived here as in paradise, and the thought that I must leave it, and go far away over the sea to strangers and to an unknown land, filled me with dismay. As an only child, and a motherless one, I suppose I had been spoilt, though to be very dearly loved does not always necessarily mean to be over-indulged. I am sure my father spent many anxious hours over my upbringing, and with him I was accustomed to prompt obedience, though I fear I ruled Juanita, my mulatto nurse, and Tasso, the black bearer, with a rod of iron. Friends of my own age and station I had none; my father was all in all to me, and in his constant companionship I had grown up a somewhat old-fashioned child, learning a few desultory lessons, reading every story-book upon which I could lay my hands, and living in a make-believe world of my own, as different from the actual realities of life as could well be imagined. It was indeed time for a change, though the transplanting process might be hard to bear. I think many urgent letters from relations in England had helped to form my father's decision, and, his mind once made up, he hurried on the preparations for my journey, in a kind of nervous anxiety lest he should repent, and refuse to part with me after all. "I suppose your aunt will find your clothes all right," he said, as he watched Juanita pack my cabin trunk. "I've told her to rig you out afresh if she doesn't. We don't go in for Paris modes at San Carlos, so I'm afraid you will hardly be in the latest fashion! You must be a good girl, and do as you're told. You'll find everything rather different over there, but you'll soon get used to it, and be happy, I hope; though what I'm to do without you here I don't know," he added wistfully. "You're all I've got now!" And he looked out over the blue waters of the bay to that little plot under the shade of the campanile where my pretty mother lay sleeping so quietly.