princess."

"It is very prettily worked, my dear. And whom is it for? Some very
elegant lady. Is it for the First Consul's lady? They say she is the
most elegant lady in the world--though she is a Creole, like you, my
darling. Is your pretty handkerchief for her?"

"No, grandpapa. I dare say she has all the ladies in France to work for
her. I should like, if you have no objection, to send this to Madame
L'Ouverture!"

"To Madame L'Ouverture. Why? Has not she daughters to work
handkerchiefs for her, and plenty of money to buy them? Why should you
prick your fingers in her service?"

"I should like that L'Ouverture himself should observe, some day, that
she has a beautiful handkerchief; and then, if he should ask, he would
find out that there is a little Creole girl who is very grateful to him
for his generosity to her colour."

"Do not speak of colour, child. What expressions you pick up from Afra,
and such people! It is our distinction that we have no colour--that we
are white."

"That is the distinction of the nuns, I know; but I hoped it was not
mine yet. I do not forget how you pinch my cheek sometimes, and talk
about roses."

"What is there? What do I see?" cried the old man, whose mind seemed
open to everything agreeable that met his observation, on his return
home. "Are those the same little birds that you were wooing the other
morning? No creature that has ever seen you, my dear, ever forgets you.
Nothing that you have spoken to ever deserts you. Shy creatures, that
are afraid of everybody else, haunt you."

"Oh! you are thinking of the little spotted fawn."

"Spotted fawn or squirrel--baby or humming-bird--it is always the same,
child. They all come to you. I dare say these little creatures have
been flitting about the balcony and these rooms, ever since we went
away. Now they have found you."

"They do not seem to care much about me, now we have met," said
Euphrosyne. She followed them softly to the balcony, and along it, as
far as the window of Monsieur Revel's room. There she found, stuck in
the bars of the balcony, a rather fresh branch of orange-blossoms.
While she was examining this, in some surprise, old Raphael spoke to her
from below. He said he had made bold to climb up by his ladder, twice a
day, with something to entice the birds to that window; as he supposed
that, was what she wished, if she had been at home. The abbess had
given him leave to take this liberty.