e had been left on the quay at Havre by an American captain. This
captain had found her, when she was only about six years old, lying on
bales of cotton in the hold of his ship, some hours after his departure
from New York. On his arrival in Havre he abandoned to the care of this
compassionate oyster dealer the little black creature, who had been
hidden on board his vessel, he knew not why or by whom.

The oyster woman having died, the young negress became a servant at the
Colonial Tavern.

Antoine Boitelle added: "This will be all right if my parents don't
oppose it. I will never go against them, you understand, never! I'm going
to say a word or two to them the first time I go back to the country."

On the following week, in fact, having obtained twenty-four hours' leave,
he went to see his family, who cultivated a little farm at Tourteville,
near Yvetot.

He waited till the meal was finished, the hour when the coffee baptized
with brandy makes people more open-hearted, before informing his parents
that he had found a girl who satisfied his tastes, all his tastes, so
completely that there could not exist any other in all the world so
perfectly suited to him.

The old people, on hearing this, immediately assumed a cautious manner
and wanted explanations. He had concealed nothing from them except the
color of her skin.

She was a servant, without much means, but strong, thrifty, clean,
well-conducted and sensible. All these things were better than money
would be in the hands of a bad housewife. Moreover, she had a few sous,
left her by a woman who had reared her, a good number of sous, almost a
little dowry, fifteen hundred francs in the savings bank. The old people,
persuaded by his talk, and relying also on their own judgment, were
gradually weakening, when he came to the delicate point. Laughing in
rather a constrained fashion, he said:

"There's only one thing you may not like. She is not a white slip."

They did not understand, and he had to explain at some length and very
cautiously, to avoid shocking them, that she belonged to the dusky race
of which they had only seen samples in pictures at Epinal. Then they
became restless, perplexed, alarmed, as if he had proposed a union with
the devil.

The mother said: "Black? How much of her is black? Is the whole of her?"

He replied: "Certainly. Everywhere, just as you are white everywhere."

The father interposed: "Black? Is it as black as the pot?"

The so