Walked in the shrubbery where I found all the maid servants strolling in different parties. The whole shrubbery was vocal with birds of every sort. The evening was quite still and warm and I loitered on the terrace listening to their various melody till, as light faded away, they became silent one by one and the last went to his perch.

And then in the distance the wild duck's flight from pool to pool was to be heard in the dark by his quack, while the party he left behind him might be heard half a mile off talking in their low, liquid gutterals, till at length all was still. The universal silence was only broken by the distant bark of a dog.

This was one of the pleasures which are lost to people of habit and fashion who spend this hour at their dinner table - as they do the corresponding hour of early morning in their beds. But they are hours never forgotten by those who know how to enjoy them.