But
Desclieux's brow now kindled with higher thoughts. In this feeble
offset he saw the pretty little starry flowers, then the perfumed
berries, and the negroes gathering it abundantly, and then the ocean
bearing vessels to France laden, with its produce. All this he could
see in the few small leaves scarcely aboveground. Enthusiastically
did he tell these bright visions to Louisa, and as she kindled in her
turn, the coffee-plant became dearer and dearer to her, and she
lavished as tender care upon it as she would upon a newborn brother.
She seemed to have common sympathies with it, and if she felt that
the heat might be too much for its slender stem, she drew over it
little curtains of green silk which she had made expressly for it,
just as a tender mother curtains the cradle of her infant. And then
she read to Desclieux and her parents a long account of the coffee
of Mocha, and pictured vividly to their imagination the tree to grow
out of the nursling whose infancy they watched over.
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