"Oh! it is astonishing how some of these women do rule," continued Mrs. Mackenzie, in defiance of Mrs. Montresor's warning and beseeching looks. "There was General B., the governor of one of the Leeward Islands; he was often an invalid from gout or rheumatism, and obliged to use a crutch. When his chère amie was angry at him, she used to take his crutch from him, poor creature, and beat him with it. This is a fact, I assure you, my dear."

"He well deserved it," said Mrs. Montresor, "for showing so bad an example. A person in the elevated situation of governor ought to be careful of his conduct. It is a great mistake in those who hold high places in any society to think that they ought, therefore, to be above restraint. On the contrary, the higher and the more public their station, the more accountable they are, both to God and man, for their conduct."

"Are the coloured people remarkable for bad temper ?" asked Geraldine.

"No; as a class of persons, by no means remarkable for bad temper; quite the contrary. By the way, talking of coloured people, have you heard, Mrs. Montresor, that Miss Ludlow has got Hetty Vickars sent out of the house at last? Mr. Ludlow was a fool to think that his daughter would always remain blind to the real state of things. He might have seen that she has much more penetration than her poor, good-natured, silly mother had."

"Helen told me," said Geraldine, "that the housekeeper had been insolent to her more than once, and that she intended to request her father to discharge her."

"Oh, Madame Hetty considered Miss Ludlow quite as a usurper: she had no idea of being second in command. But she counted a little too much on her influence over Mr. Ludlow. He stands in still greater awe of his daughter than he does of her."

"Did Mr. Ludlow stand in awe of his housekeeper ?"

"Yes, Miss Montresor, he did, and does. But do you suppose, now, that she is only his housekeeper? Pshaw, my dear! Miss Hetty holds the same situation in Mr. Ludlow's establishment that Miss Horner holds in Mr. Le Vasseur's."

Geraldine lifted up her hands and eyes in astonishment, and looked absolutely aghast. After a moment's silence, she said:

"If such be the case, with what justice is Mr. Le Vasseur, a young, unmarried man, sent to Coventry for conduct which is entirely overlooked in a man of Mr. Ludlow's time of life, who has a grown-up daughter in his house ?"

"Geraldine, my love," said Mrs. Montresor, "I am extremely sorry that you have been present during this conversation, and have therefore been obliged to contemplate subjects on which your young mind should never rest. But since you have heard so much, I should not wish to leave you under the impression that the profligate Mr. Le Vasseur is treated with injustice by our little world. You are aware that there may be degrees in vice as well as in everything else; and the man who chooses to brave public opinion, and avowedly to glory in his vice, is a greater culprit, in the eye of the world, than he who endeavours to elude observation, and to keep up at least the appearance of respectability. In point of fact, June-VOL. CXIX. NO. CCCCLXXIV.

N

both may be equally wrong; but the one shows at least some little respect for virtue when he shrinks from its censure, while the other, in courting publicity, proves that he is hardened in sin. Such is the difference between the conduct of Mr. Ludlow and Mr. Le Vasseur. Hetty Vickars has always been kept in the background, treated as an inferior, and passing only as an upper servant, whose duties, in fact, she fulfilled. While the other woman was received into Mr. Le Vasseur's house with great pomp and parade; she is obtruded on all his guests, and accompanies him in his open carriage on all public occasions; at reviews, or on the race-ground, for instance, where the most respectable ladies of the island are to be seen. If Mr. Le Vasseur chooses to take pains to exhibit his connexion with such a person, he unavoidably loses his place in society, as society is constituted here; and therefore, you perceive, that in accepting of attention from him you are letting yourself very much down."

The deepest crimson was pale to the colour that had spread over Geraldine's cheek, and brow, and neck; her very fingers tingled with shame, as she said, in a husky voice,

“Oh, mamma, how could you be so cruel as to leave me in ignorance of all this? What must everybody have thought of me? What must Mr. Le Vasseur himself have thought of me? And when he shows my poor bouquet to that woman, how they will laugh at me together!"

Geraldine pressed her hand upon her eyes as if to shut out the mortifying vision that was swimming before them; and Mrs. Mackenzie, who had kept silence longer than she liked, exclaimed:

"Dear me, Miss Montresor, you need not fret yourself about the flowers; depend on it Le Vasseur would as soon bite his tongue out as say a word of them to Miss Ram's Horn. Remember the proverb about the scalded cat."

The graceful, the elegant Mr. Le Vasseur likened to a scalded cat! Geraldine, notwithstanding her vexation, could not help laughing, and Mrs. Mackenzie went on:

"But, talking of the other evening, have you heard that Miss Ludlow has refused Lionel Seymour, and that the éclaircissement took place at the maroon?"

"I cannot believe it," said Mrs. Montresor, coldly. That worthy lady did not like to hear of the matrimonial chances of any damsel but her own daughter's.

"I am very sorry to hear it," said Geraldine. "Mr. Seymour seems such an amiable young man, so intellectual, and so accomplished, that Helen would have had every chance of happiness with him."

"Not if she has fallen in love with somebody else," said Mrs. Mackenzie; "and, notwithstanding its not being the fashion for young ladies to fall in love, I rather think it is the case with her. But she has refused Seymour, I know. Mr. Thornley, without in the least intending to listen, heard him pop the question, and receive his quietus; and that was the reason he did not come to Clare Hall in the evening, not his having got cold from the doo,' as that booby Orlando Fish calls it."

"Poor Mr. Seymour!" said Geraldine, in a tone of much commiseration.

"Well, my dear, since Helen won't have him, you can't do better than take pity on him yourself."

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Mackenzie," said Mrs. Montresor, scornfully; "Geraldine Montresor CAN do better than to accept the refused of Miss Helen Ludlow."

"I am very glad to hear that she can," said Mrs. Mackenzie, in a provoking manner peculiar to herself. "I think I have heard you, Mrs. Montresor, say that Lionel Seymour was now the best match in the island." Mrs. Montresor could not deny her own words, and Mrs. Mackenzie, having enjoyed a triumphant laugh, passed to another subject.

"There were two grand balls in town last night, I understand-two rival balls."

"Indeed," replied Mrs. Montresor; "I heard nothing of them. I was told, however, I think, that those people, the Hugginses, were going to have 'a dance,' as they call it, some night this week; but we do not visit them. Was one of the balls at their house?"

"Bless you, no! They were a coloured and a negro ball. A good many gentlemen went on the sly to the coloured ball. Mr. Tobin, as Edgar, one of our footmen, is called among his acquaintances, was at the negro ball, and also his sister Miss Delilah, my waiting-maid. He, with his black silk stockings and perfumed pocket-handkerchief, she with her coloured gauze dress, kid shoes (they don't wear satin shoes yet), fan, and artificial flowers in her hair."

"I thought," said Geraldine, "that female negroes did not like to be seen with their heads uncovered. They always look much out of coun-tenance if you catch them for a moment without the usual handkerchief." They do not like white people to see them without their handkerchiefs, but some of them go to their balls with heads uncovered. The gay-coloured handkerchiefs, however, which they generally wear, when twisted on tastefully, are much more becoming to them than the exposure of their woolly hair, however laden with ornament."

"What kind of refreshments do they have at their balls ?"

"Oh, the best of everything, especially the negroes. They have cold turkey, guinea-birds, chickens, ham, tongue, cakes richly iced and decorated, fruits, and wine and spirits. There is no lack of good things, depend upon it, my dear, among the negroes, though they are the objects of such deep commiseration to the folks at home. I don't believe our negroes would change places with the poor operatives in the crowded factories among them. But I have made you quite a visitation, and I must bid you good-by, for I have promised to take up Mr. Thornley at Peter Maxwell's at three o'clock. By-the-by," continued the talkative Mrs. Mackenzie, reseating herself, "speaking of Maxwell, Miss Montresor, you have mortally offended him."

Mrs. Montresor looked aghast, and Geraldine calmly answered that she had not the pleasure of knowing him, therefore could not have been the person who offended him.

"Ay, but it was you.

You danced with him at Clare Hall the other evening, and you called the poor little man nothing but Mr. Prog' the

whole time."

"Geraldine !" ejaculated Mrs. Montresor, in a tone of horror.

"I danced with a short gentleman who had been pointed out to me as Mr. Peter Prog. I was not attending particularly when he was introduced to me and not having caught his name, I called him, of course, by the name I had heard was his."

"Ha-ha-ha! Then you did not intend to quiz him when you called him Prog? That is poor Peter's nickname, and very sore he is about it. In fact, he is much more frequently called Peter Prog than Peter Maxwell-but people don't exactly use it to his face. The negroes made a song upon him last Christmas, and some of them sung it under his own gallery. It was:

Mass' Peter Prog,

You gib neger weak grog,

You self you no like it so.
Mass' Peter Prog,

You drink tif grog;

You tink neger no like it so ?"

"I detest nicknames," said Geraldine, "and was innocent of any intentional rudeness to Mr. Maxwell. But why has he been dubbed 'Prog?" "

"Because he is always on the look-out for good dinners at other people's houses, and is very stingy at his own table. He often calls so near the dinner-hour, that an invitation to stay becomes a matter of necessity."

"He should have flourished," said Mrs. Montresor, "in those unsophisticated days, and in that little island, when and where the person who slaughtered a sheep, or caught a turtle, hoisted a flag, or fired a gun, a due time before the hour of dinner, by way of an invitation to his neighbours, far and near, to come and partake of the good cheer."

"Such extensive hospitality would not suit us now-a-days," said Mrs. Mackenzie ; 66 we cannot even afford the Christmas festivities for the negroes on the scale that we used to do. You will be surprised at a negro Christmas, Miss Geraldine. The holidays last generally for two or three days, during which time nothing goes on but eating and drinking, dancing and singing: the latter with all the strength of their stentorian voices. Their songs are sometimes very satirical. I must just tell you the words of Buddy Quow,' though they are not very refined, and perhaps they may be scarcely comprehensible to you:

What's de matter, Buddy Quow ?*

You tan me no sabey how-
Da Buckra man da wrang you?
True Granjay!

Cha! Tan away! Let me alone

You see trouble begin now.

Gar Almighty dere above

You see wha Quasheba do me!

Da Buckra man she love,

She bring mulatto gie me!
True Granjay!

*This and some other negro songs popular in many of the islands were composed by Mr. S—1 M—t—s, of Creole celebrity—a Buckra whose skill in singing negro songs rendered him a great favourite among the Blacks.

True Granjay!

dear; and

Obisha means overseer, my Oh, pray do not enter into explanations of this negro song, Mrs. Mackenzie," said Mrs. Montresor, interrupting her; "you must excuse me for saying so, but I do not think the words are at all fit for a lady's

mouth."

"I forgot your extreme particularity, dear Mrs. Montresor. I really beg a thousand pardons-I am afraid I have given you as many shocks to-day as if I had been an electric eel. By-the-by, you can't think how frightened the negroes were at that electric eel which was shown at Mr. Brown's store. They thought it was his Satanic Majesty himself who had assumed that disguise, as they plunged their arms into the creature's tub, and received the shocks. There was such a shrieking and yelling! But I am forgetting poor Thornley, who will be out of patience with Peter Maxwell's prosing by this time; so good-by-good-by !" And Mrs. Mackenzie betook herself to her carriage, satisfied that she had left untold none of the gossip she had been gathering for the last few days.

VII.

ONE evening, a few weeks after Mrs. Mackenzie's gossiping visit and undesired communications, Geraldine had arranged to ride with Mrs. Temple to see some very fine rocky scenery at a solitary part of the island called Carib Bay, because tradition had pointed out this place as having been the spot where the followers of Columbus had effected a landing on the beautiful island, which, until discovered through the enterprising genius of one European, and invaded through the grasping cupidity of many, had slept in tranquil repose and happy security amidst the sparkling waters of that magnificent ocean, whose remoter bounds were, till then, unknown to the busy multitudes of the Eastern and Northern world. At this little secluded bay the Spaniards were said to have landed, notwithstanding the resistance offered to them by the astonished Caribs, headed by the courageous Indian female who was at that time the cacique or ruler of the island.

It was a bold coast, skirted by rocks of fantastic forms, interspersed with little patches of bright, dry, hard sand, whilst an almost perpendicular hill rose above, along the side of which were wider and narrower masses of stone jutting out over the bay beneath, down which a sloping zig-zag path, smooth in some places, rough in others, led down to the narrow beach. This path, which was tolerably broad near the brow of the hill, became narrower and narrower as it descended towards the shore; and though not absolutely dangerous to any one who traversed it cautiously, even on horseback, while there was light to see the way, would have been an insecure promenade in the dark.

Geraldine was ready to go, and her horse was standing at the door waiting for her, when a message came from Mrs. Temple to say that she