was old enough she would be provided with a distinguished husband from
afar, selected by the experienced judgement of a woman of the world.

But Mary Fawcett, still hot-headed and impulsive in her second
half-century, was more prone to err in crises than her daughter. In
spite of the deeper passions of her nature, Rachael, except when under
the lash of strong excitement, had a certain clearness of insight and
deliberation of judgement which her mother lacked to her last day.

III

Rachael had just eaten the last of her sixteenth birthday sweets when,
at a ball at Government House, she met John Michael Levine. It was her
debut; she was the fairest creature in the room, and, in the idiom of
Dr. Hamilton, the men besieged her as were she Brimstone Hill in
possession of the French. The Governor and the Captain General had
asked her to dance, and even the women smiled indulgently, disarmed by
so much innocent loveliness.

Levine, albeit a Dane, and as colourless as most of his countrymen, was
her determined suitor before the night was half over. It may be that he
was merely dazzled by the regal position to which the young men had
elevated her, and that his cold blood quickened at the thought of
possessing what all men desired, but he was as immediate and persistent
in his suit as any excitable creole in the room. But Rachael gave him
scant attention that night. She may have been intellectual, but she was
also a girl, and it was her first ball. She was dazzled and happy,
delighted with her conquests, oblivious to the depths of her nature.

The next day Levine, strong in the possession of a letter from Mr. Peter
Lytton,--for a fortnight forgotten,--presented himself at Mistress
Fawcett's door, and was admitted. The first call was brief and
perfunctory, but he came the next day and the next. Rachael, surprised,
but little interested, and longing for her next ball, strummed the harp
at her mother's command and received his compliments with indifference.
A week after his first call Mary Fawcett drove into town and spent an
hour with the Governor. He told her that Levine had brought him a
personal letter from the Governor of St. Croix, and that he was wealthy
and well born. He was also, in his Excellency's opinion, a distinguished
match even for the most beautiful and accomplished girl on the Island.
Peter Lytton had mentioned in his letter that Levine purposed buying an
estate on St. Croix and settling down to the life of