ems awful."

"Really, I never thought of it so; you see, so many planters'
daughters come from the West Indies to Paris schools. Many in feature
and color suggest the dark continent, but are accepted, nevertheless.
However, the girl I mention was not dark. Her mother had seven white
ancestors to one of black. Yet she confided her story to a friend of
mine, and she was an American slave."

The dowager was plainly distressed at the direction of the conversation,
for the shock to Mrs. McVeigh was so very apparent, and as her hostess
remembered that slavery was threatening to become an institution of
uncompromising discord across the water, all reference to it was likely
to be unwelcome. She pressed the fingers of the Marquise warningly,
and the Marquise smiled up at her, but evidently did not understand.

"Can such a thing be possible?" asked Mrs. McVeigh, incredulously; "in
that case I shall think twice before I send _my_ daughter here to
school, as I had half intended--and you remained in such an
establishment?"

"I had no choice; my guardians decided those questions."

"And the faculty--they allowed it?"

"They did not know it. She was represented as being the daughter of an
American planter; which was true. I have reason to believe that my
friend was her only confidant."

"And for what purpose was she educated in such an establishment?"

"That she might gain accomplishments enhancing her value as companion
to the man who was to own her."

"Madame!"

"Marquise!"

The two exclamations betrayed how intent her listeners were, and how
full of horror the suggestion. There was even incredulity in the
tones, an initiative protest against such possibilities. But the
Marquise looked from one to the other with unruffled earnestness.

"So it was told to me," she continued; "these accomplishments meant
extra thousands to the man who sold her, and the man was her father's
brother."

"No, no, no!" and Mrs. McVeigh shook her head decidedly to emphasize
her conviction. "I cannot believe that at the present day in our
country such an arrangement could exist. No one, knowing our men,
could credit such a story. In the past century such abuses might have
existed, but surely not now--in all my life I have heard of nothing
like that."

"Probably the girl was romancing," agreed the Marquise, with a shrug,
"for you would no doubt be aware if such a state of affairs had
existence."

"Certainly."

"Then your men are not so