ughters," said she, on one of these mornings, "I
have none."

"But you will have: they will return to you," said Afra. "Think of them
as you did of your sons, when they were at Paris--as absent for a while
to gain experience, and sure to return. You will find one of them,
perhaps both, as happy on your bosom hereafter as we see your Placide by
his father's side."

"How can you say so, Afra? Which of my girls will ever come to me
again, as they did at Breda?"

"Genifrede is better," said Euphrosyne; "better since we came here--
better every day: and I should wonder if she were not. No one can long
be sullen here."

"Do not be hard, Euphrosyne, my love--`Sullen' is a hard word for my
poor, unhappy child."

"Nay, madam; no one can be more sorry for her than I am; as you will
find, if you ask Father Gabriel. He will tell you how angry I was with
L'Ouverture, how cruel I thought him on that dreadful day. But now, in
these stirring times, when our whole world, our little world in the
middle of the sea, is to be destroyed, or made free and glorious for
ever, I do think it is being sullen to mope on the mountain as she does,
and speak to nobody, care for nobody, but the Dessalines. However, I
would not say a word about it, if I were not sure that she is getting
better. And if she were growing worse, instead of better, there is
nothing that I would not do to help or console her, though I must still
think her sullen--not only towards her father here, but--"

And Euphrosyne crossed herself.

"It is hard," sighed Madame L'Ouverture; "it is hard to do all one
ought, even in the serious hours of one's prayers. I do try, with my
husband's help, when he is here, and from the thought of him when he is
absent, to pray, as he desires, for our enemies. But it generally ends
(God forgive me!) in my praying that Bonaparte may be held back from the
work of estranging our children from us."

"It can only be for a time," said Afra, again. She could think of no
other consolation.

"Those who know best say that everything is for good," continued Margot.
"If so, I wonder whether anyone can foretell what can be the good of a
stranger, a man that we have never seen, and who has everything about
him to make him great, thrusting himself between us and our children, to
take their hearts from us. I asked L'Ouverture to foretell to me how
this would be explained; and he put his hand upon my month, and asked me
to kneel down, and p