that curve, a light footstep on the broken shells--one
only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had he mistaken? No.
The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale glimpse of robes came
through the tangle, and then, plainly to view, appeared an outline--a
presence--a form--a spirit--a girl!

From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
temples,--her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down to
guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
grass,--straight down the path she came!

Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _Can it be_? Is this
his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to Monsieur Vignevielle the
unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is
now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will
shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do
that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck
and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mockingbird cannot
withhold; he breaks into song--she turns--she turns her face--it is she,
it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship.

CHAPTER IX.

OLIVE

She was just passing seventeen--that beautiful year when the heart of
the maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,
while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation of
womanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair were
fair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,
lack-lustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,
no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face that
seemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for the
large, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingled
dreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We