ans; but no one mentioned Ailbaud. Ailbaud--"

"Stay a moment," said Azua, whose voice had not been heard till then.

All looked at him in surprise, nobody supposing that, while so engrossed
with his pencil, he could have cared for their conversation. Aimee saw
at a glance that his paper was covered with caricatures of the
commissaries who had been enumerated.

"You must have known them," was Aimee's involuntary testimony, as the
paper went from hand to hand, amidst shouts of laughter, while Azua sat,
with folded arms, perfectly grave.

"I have seen some of the gentlemen," said he, "and Monsieur Denis helped
me to the rest."

The laughter went on till Aimee was somewhat nettled. When the paper
came back to her, she looked up into the tree under which she sat. The
staring monkey was still there. She made a vigorous spring to hand up
the caricature, which the creature caught. As it sat demurely on a
branch, holding the paper as if reading it, while one of its companions
as gravely looked over its shoulder, there was more laughter than ever.

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Azua," said Aimee; "but this is the only
worthy fate of a piece of mockery of people wiser than ourselves, and no
less kind. The negroes have hitherto been thought, at least, grateful.
It seems that this is a mistake. For my part, however, I leave it to
the monkeys to ridicule the French."

Vincent seized her hand, and covered it with kisses. She was abashed,
and turned away, when she saw her father behind her, in the shade of the
wood. Monsieur Pascal, his secretary, was with him.

"My father!"

"L'Ouverture!" exclaimed one after another of the party; for they all
supposed he had been far away. Even Denis at once gave over pelting the
monkeys, and left them to their study of the arts in peace.

"Your drawings, my daughters!" said L'Ouverture, with a smile, as if he
had been perfectly at leisure. And he examined the Naiad, and then
Genifrede's drawing, with the attention of an artist. Genifrede had
made great progress, under the eye of Moyse. Not so Aimee; her pencil
had been busy all the while, but there was no Naiad on her page.

"They are for Isaac," she said, timidly. "Among all the pictures he
sees, there are no--"

"No sketches of Denis and his little companions," said her father; "no
cocoa-nut clumps--no broken fountains among the aloes--no groups that
will remind him of home. Isaac shall presently have these, Aimee. I