runk,
and spoiled his dinner; when Venus sent up his linen darker than it went
down to the quarter, or when little Machabee picked his pocket of small
coin. Such a man was, of course, particularly busy this week; and of
course, the slaves under his charge were particularly idle, and
particularly likely to have friends from other plantations to visit
them.

Some such visitor seemed to be expected by a family of these Breda
negroes, on the Monday evening, the 22nd. This family did not live in
the slave-quarter. They had a cottage near the stables, as Toussaint
Breda had been Monsieur Bayou's postillion, and, when he was lately
promoted to be overseer, it was found convenient to all parties that he
should retain his dwelling, which had been enlarged and adorned so as to
accord with the dignity of his new office. In the piazza of his
dwelling sat Toussaint this evening, evidently waiting for some one to
arrive; for he frequently put down his book to listen for footsteps, and
more than once walked round the house to look abroad. His wife, who was
within, cooking supper, and his daughter and little boy, who were beside
him in the piazza, observed his restlessness; for Toussaint was a great
reader, and seldom looked off the page for a moment of any spare hour
that he might have for reading either the books Monsieur Bayou lent him,
or the three or four volumes which he had been permitted to purchase for
himself.

"Do you see Jean?" asked the wife from within. "Shall we wait supper
for him?"

"Wait a little longer," said Toussaint. "It will be strange if he does
not come."

"Are any more of Latour's people coming with Jean, mother?" asked
Genifrede, from the piazza.

"No; they have a supper at Latour's to-night; and we should not have
thought of inviting Jean, but that he wants some conversation with your
father."

"Lift me up," cried the little boy, who was trying in vain to scramble
up one of the posts of the piazza, in order to reach a humming-bird's
nest, which hung in the tendrils of a creeper overhead, and which a
light puff of wind now set swinging, so as to attract the child's eye.
What child ever saw a humming-bird thus rocking--its bill sticking out
like a long needle on one side, and its tail at the other, without
longing to clutch it? So Denis cried out imperiously to be lifted up.
His father set him on the shelf within the piazza, where the calabashes
were kept--a station whence he could see into th