ed petticoat, remaining attached to this sort
of white spencer, with short sleeves, and cut very low, formed a costume
less precise than the other, and harmonised wonderfully with the scarlet
stocking, and the coloured handkerchief, so coquettishly arranged around
the creole's head. Nothing could be more perfect, more beautifully
defined, than the graceful contour of her arms and shoulders. A heavy
sigh aroused Cecily's attention. She smiled, as she twisted around her
finger one of her curling tresses, which had escaped from beneath her
head-dress.

"Cecily! Cecily!" murmured a voice, which was plaintive though coarse.
And through the wicket was visible the pale and flat face of Jacques
Ferrand.

Cecily, silent until then, began to hum a creole air; the words of this
melody were sweet and expressive. Although repressed, the full
contra-alto of Cecily was heard above the noise of the torrents of the
rain and gusts of wind, which seemed to shake the old house to its very
foundation.

"Cecily! Cecily!" repeated Jacques Ferrand, in a tone of supplication.

The creole paused suddenly and turned her head around quickly, as if,
for the first time, she then heard the notary's voice; and going towards
the door,--

"What, dear master (she called him so in derision), you there?" she
said, with a slight foreign accent, which gave additional charm to her
full and sarcastic voice.

"Oh, how beautiful you are!" murmured the notary.

"You think so?" said Cecily. "Doesn't my head-dress become me?"

"I think you handsomer every day."

"Only see how white my arm is."

"Monster, begone! Begone!" shouted Jacques Ferrand, furious.

Cecily burst into a loud fit of laughter.

"No, no, it is too much to suffer! Oh, if I were not afraid of death!"
said the notary, gloomily. "But to die is to renounce you altogether,
and you are so beautiful! I would rather, then, suffer--and look at
you."

"Look at me? Why, that's what the wicket was made for; and so we can
thus chat, like two friends in our solitude, which really is not irksome
to me, you are such a good master! What a dangerous confession I make
through the door!"

"Will you never open this door? You see how submissive I am; this
evening I might have tried to enter into your chamber with you, but I
did not do so."

"You are submissive for two reasons: in the first place, because you
know that, having, from the necessity of my wandering life, always had
the precaution to ca