elano again spoke
of the approaching twilight, and with mutual caresses they bade each
other adieu.

Four or five days later, Floracita made her appearance at the Welby
plantation in a state of great excitement. She was in a nervous
tremor, and her eyelids were swollen as if with much weeping. Mrs.
Delano hastened to enfold her in her arms, saying: "What is it, my
child? Tell your new Mamita what it is that troubles you so."

"O, _may_ I call you Mamita?" asked Flora, looking up with an
expression of grateful love that warmed all the fibres of her friend's
heart. "O, I do so need a Mamita! I am very wretched; and if you don't
help me, I don't know what I _shall_ do!"

"Certainly, I will help you, if possible, when you have told me your
trouble," replied Mrs. Delano.

"Yes, I will tell," said Flora, sighing. "Mr. Fitzgerald is the
gentleman who married my sister; but we don't live at his plantation.
We live in a small cottage hidden away in the woods. You never saw
anybody so much in love as he was with Rosa. When we first came here,
he was never willing to have her out of his sight a moment. And Rosa
loves him so! But for these eight or ten weeks past he has been making
love to me; though he is just as affectionate as ever with Rosa. When
she is playing to him, and I am singing beside her, he keeps throwing
kisses to me behind her back. It makes me feel so ashamed that I can't
look my sister in the face. I have tried to--keep out of his way. When
I am in the house I stick to Rosa like a burr; and I have given up
riding or walking, except when he is away. But there's no telling
when he _is_ away. He went away yesterday, and said he was going to
Savannah to be gone a week; but this morning, when I went into the
woods behind the cottage to feed Thistle, he was lurking there. He
seized me, and held his hand over my mouth, and said I _should_ hear
him. Then he told me that Rosa and I were his slaves; that he bought
us of papa's creditors, and could sell us any day. And he says he will
carry me off to Savannah and sell me if I don't treat him better. He
would not let me go till I promised to meet him in Cypress Grove
at dusk to-night. I have been trying to earn money to go to Madame
Guirlande, and get her to send me somewhere where I could give
dancing-lessons, or singing-lessons, without being in danger of being
taken up for a slave. But I don't know how to get to New Orleans
alone; and if I am his slave, I am afraid he