yes. She therefore thought the abbess
grievously strict when she replied that her charge would prefer spending
the evening in her own chamber.

"As you please," said Madame Oge. "It was my wish to do the child a
kindness; and perhaps to have the pleasure myself of seeing a young face
for an hour or two--the rarest of all sights to me. I seldom go out;
and when I do, all the young and cheerful faces seem to have hidden
themselves."

The abbess regulated her invitations for the evening by this speech.
Sisters Debora and Marie, one the youngest, and the other the merriest
of the family, were requested to bring their work-bags, and join the
party in the parlour.

"Good evening, young lady," said Madame Oge to Euphrosyne, holding out
her hand. "I hoped to have procured you a little freedom, and to have
had _more_ conversation about your hero; but--"

"If there are to be great changes in the colony," observed the
abbess--"it may yet be in your power, madam, to show kindness to my
charge."

"If so, command me, my dear. But it is more likely that the changes to
come will have the opposite effect. Then pretty young white ladies may
have all their own way; while the storm will burst again on the heads of
the dark people."

"If so, command me, madam," Euphrosyne exerted herself to say. The
abbess's smile made her eyes fill with tears, almost before she had
spoken.

"Are your eyes wet for me, my dear?" said Madame Oge, with surprise.
"Let the storm burst upon me; for I am shattered and stricken already,
and nothing can hurt me. But I shall remember your offer. Meantime,
you may depend upon it, the news I told you is true--the times I warned
you of are coming."

"What news? what warning?" eagerly asked the sisters of Euphrosyne, as
soon as the guest was out of hearing.

"That there were hurricanes last November, and there will be more the
next," replied she, escaping to her chamber. Before she slept, she had
written all her news and all her thoughts to Afra, leaving it for
decision in the morning, whether she should send entire what she had
written.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE HERALD ABROAD.

Madame Oge's news was too true. Monsieur Pascal had held many an
anxious conversation with L'Ouverture on the subject, before Afra showed
him her little friend's letter. In a short time an additional fact
became known--that Bonaparte had re-established the slave-trade. His
enmity to the race of blacks was now op