I remember it so well: the long, cool porch, the wonderful gold-of-Ophir roses, the honeysuckle where the linnets nested, the mocking birds that sang all night long; the perfume of the jasmine, of the orange-blossoms, the pink flame of the peach trees in April, the ever-changing color of the mountains.

And I remember Ninette, my little Creole mother, gay as a butterfly, carefree as a meadow-lark.
'Twas she who planted the jasmine.
My little mother died when I was seven years old.

Dad and I and my old black mammy, Rachel, stayed on in the cottage.

The mocking-birds still sang, and the linnets still nested in the honeysuckle, but nothing was ever quite the same again.

It was like a different world; it was a different world.