These far and wide among the crowd below, some receiving the flowers and bon-bons, and some being hit by the wax balls, which, bursting, scented the victim rather too heavily for his enjoyment. It was all taken, however, with the greatest good-humour, and the merry throng passed on to parade round the town, and end with a dance under the palm-trees in the public gardens. And so my life in my southern home had passed like a kind of delightful dream, and it was not until my father talked of change that I had ever thought there could be an awakening. The little time left to me fled all too fast, and brought the much-dreaded day when I must leave everything that had grown so dear. I can never forget our parting. A hurried message had been sent to us that the steamer was to start earlier, and that I must go on board in the evening instead of on the following morning as had been at first arranged.
