a planter. On the
following day Levine told her that already he was half a West Indian, so
fascinated was he with the life and the climate, but that if she would
favour his suit he would take Rachael to Copenhagen as often as she
wished for the life of the world.

Mary Fawcett made up her mind that he should marry Rachael, and it
seemed to her that no mother had ever come to a wiser decision. Her
health was failing, and it was her passionate wish not only to leave her
child encircled by the protection of a devoted husband, but to realize
the high ambitions she had cherished from the hour she foresaw that
Rachael was to be an exceptional woman.

Levine had not seen Rachael on the morning when he asked for her hand,
and he called two days later to press his suit and receive his answer.
Mistress Fawcett told him that she had made up her own mind and would
perform that office for Rachael at once, but thought it best that he
should absent himself until the work was complete. Levine, promised an
answer on the morrow, took himself off, and Mary Fawcett sent for her
daughter.

Rachael entered the library with a piece of needlework in her hand. Her
mind was not on her books these days, for she had gone to another ball;
but her hands had been too well brought up to idle, however her brain
might dream. Mary Fawcett by this time wore a large cap with a frill,
and her face, always determined and self-willed, was growing austere
with years and much pain: she suffered frightfully at times with
rheumatism, and her apprehension of the moment when it should attack her
heart reconciled her to the prospect of brief partings from her
daughter. Her eyes still burned with the fires of an indiminishable
courage however; she read the yellow pages of her many books as rapidly
as in her youth, and if there was a speck of dust on her mahogany
floors, polished with orange juice, she saw it. Her negroes adored her
but trembled when she raised her voice, and Rachael never had disobeyed
her. She expected some dissatisfaction, possibly a temper, but no
opposition.

Rachael smiled confidently and sat down. She wore one of the thin white
linens, which, like the other women of the Islands, she put aside for
heavier stuffs on state occasions only, and her hair had tumbled from
its high comb and fallen upon her shoulders. Mary Fawcett sighed as she
looked at her. She was too young to marry, and had it not been for the
haunting terror of leaving her al