e had softened Clorinda's
obdurate heart, and made her think it possible that at some future time
she might be persuaded to place her fair self, and what she prized more,
her money, in Dolf's keeping.

But the worst of it was, Dolf's susceptible fancy led him strongly in
another direction, even while his discretion warned him to follow up the
success he had achieved with the culinary nymph. Victoria was a stylish,
handsome young mulatto, and Clorinda was, undoubtedly, pure African to
the very root of her genealogical tree. African from the soul of her
broad foot to the end, I cannot say point, of her flat nose. Indeed, it
is quite possible that Dolf's yellow skin went for something in her
admiration; but unfortunately Dolf preferred the cafe-au-lait complexion
also, and had a masculine weakness in favor of youth and good looks.

Poor Clorinda certainly did present a rather dry and withered aspect;
her hands bore rough evidence of the toil with which she had earned the
money her sable lover coveted, and their clasp was very unsatisfactory
to a man whose flirtations had hitherto been with ladies' maids. She was
sadly destitute of the airs and graces with which Victoria fascinated
the grand sex so freely upon all occasions; Clo's curly tresses held
quantities of whiteness, and she could only hide it under gorgeous
bandannas, which were now wofully out of fashion among the colored
aristocrats, and gaze enviously at Victoria's long curls, feeling her
fingers quiver to give them a pull when that damsel fluttered them too
jauntily in her eyes.

There had always been trouble enough between the two, but after Dolf's
arrival the kitchen department grew very hot and uncomfortable, and even
the wary Dolf himself, skilled as he was in Lotharian practices,
frequently had great difficulty in steering clear of both Scylla and
Charybdis.

Clorinda was much given to devotional exercises, and went to meeting on
every possible occasion; while Victoria, with the flightiness of her
years, laughed at Clo's psalm-singing, and interrupted her prayers in
the most fervid part by polka steps and profane redowas. In order to
propitiate Clorinda, Dolf had accompanied her to meeting much oftener
than his inclinations prompted, expressing the utmost desire to be
remembered in her prayers, all the while denouncing himself as a
miserable sinner not worth saving.

But good women with a weakness for helping masculine sinners are alike
in one thing,