ce I can remember--and
here we are, quite safe still."

"Tell the truth, child. How dare you say that we have been safe ever
since you remember?"

"I said `almost,' grandpapa. I do not forget about our being in the
woods--about--but we will not talk of that now. That was all over a
long time ago; and we have been very safe since. The great thing of all
is, that there was no L'Ouverture then, to take care of us. Now, you
know, the Commander-in-chief is always thinking how he can take the best
care of us."

"`No L'Ouverture then!' One would think you did not know what and where
Toussaint was then. Why, child, your poor father was master over a
hundred such as he."

"Do you think they were like him? Surely, if they had been like him,
they would not have treated us as they did. Afra says she does not
believe, anybody like him ever lived."

"Afra is a pestilent little fool."

"Oh, grandpapa!"

"Well, well! She is a very good girl in her way; but she talks about
what she does not understand. She pretends to judge of governors of the
colony, when her own father cannot govern this town, and she never knew
Blanchelande! Ah! if she had known Blanchelande, she would have seen a
man who understood his business, and had spirit to keep up the dignity
and honour of the colony. If that sort of rule had gone on till now, we
should not have had the best houses in the island full of these black
upstarts; nor a mulatto governor in this very town."

"And then I should not have had Afra for a friend, grandpapa."

"You would have been better without, child. I do not like to see you
for ever with a girl of her complexion, though she is the governor's
daughter. There must be an end of it--there shall be an end of it. It
is a good time now. There is a reason for it to-day. It is time you
made friends of your own complexion, child; and into the convent you
go--this very day."

"Oh, grandpapa, you don't mean that those nuns are of my complexion!
Poor pale creatures! I would not for the world look like them: and I
certainly shall, if you put me there. I had much rather look like Afra
than like sister Benoite, or sister Cecile. Grandpapa! you would not
like me to look like sister Benoite?"

"How do I know, child? I don't know one from another of them."

"No, indeed! and you would not know me by the time I had been there
three months. How sorry you would be, grandpapa, when you asked for me
next winter, to see a