d into a belt!--and
walked about the island in the early morning. The negroes singing in
the golden cane fields, the women walking along the white road with
their swinging hips, immense baskets poised on their heads, pic'nees
trotting behind, or clinging to their flanks, the lonely odorous,
silent jungles in the high recesses, the cold fringe of forest close
to the lost crater, the house in which Nelson courted and married his
bride and the church in which the marriage certificate is still kept;
she visited them all and alone. In the afternoon she drove with her
aunt, their phaeton one of a gay procession, stopping sometimes at one
of the Great Houses, where she was taken by the young people out to
the mill to see the grinding and partake of "sling;" home in the cool
of the evening to dress for the long dinner and brilliant evening. She
would not dance, but she made several friends among the young men,
notably that accomplished lady-killer and _arbiter elegantiarum_, Mr.
Abergenny, so prosilient in the London of his day; and found herself
in a fair way to be disliked thoroughly by all the other young women
save Lady Mary Denbigh; who, somewhat to her embarrassment, showed a
distinct preference for her society, particularly when Lord Hunsdon
was in attendance. The men she liked better than she had believed
possible, estimating them by their suspiciously small waists, their
pinched feet, and hair so carefully curled and puffed out at the side;
but although Lord Hunsdon's attentions were now unmistakable, she
liked him none the better that she esteemed him the more, and was
glad of the refuge the admiration of the other men afforded her.

And then, without any preliminary sign of capitulation, Byam Warner
wrote to Lady Hunsdon announcing that he now felt sufficiently
recovered to pay his devoirs to one who had been so kind, apologised
for any apparent discourtesy, and asked permission to drink a dish of
tea with her on the following evening.

Lady Hunsdon was quite carried out of herself by this victory, for
there was a Lady Toppington at Bath House, whose husband was in the
present cabinet and a close friend of Peel. She had given the finest
ball of the season to signalise the return of the Tories to power, and
would have taken quick possession of the social reins had Lady Hunsdon
laid them down for a moment. Politics enjoyed a rest on Nevis, but
other interests loomed large in proportion, and the apparent defeat of
the