While Rosabella was thus exchanging the laurel crown for the myrtle wreath, Flora and her friend were on their way to search the places that had formerly known her.

Accompanied by Mr.Jacobs, who had long been a steward in her family, Mrs.Delano passed through Savannah, without calling on her friend Mrs.Welby, and in a hired boat proceeded to the island.

Flora almost flew over the ground, so great was her anxiety to reach the cottage.

Nature, which pursues her course with serene indifference to human vicissitudes, wore the same smiling aspect it had worn two years before, when she went singing through the woods, like Cinderella, all unconscious of the beneficent fairy she was to meet there in the form of a new Mamita.

Trees and shrubs were beautiful with young, glossy foliage.