d gentleness throughout the house. The younger
children were pretty creatures, well trained by their English
governess, and Mr. Ogilvy, richly coloured by sun and port, spent much
of his time on horseback; amiable at home when his will was not
crossed. The large stone house, painted a dazzling white, and
surrounded by a grove of tropical trees, stood so high on the mountain
that the garden terraces behind it finished at the entrance to the
evergreen forest. It was fitted up with every Antillian luxury: fine
mahogany furniture--the only wood that defied the boring of the West
Indian worm--light cane chairs, polished floors of pitch pine,
innumerable cabinets filled with bibelots collected during many
English visits, tables covered with newspapers and magazines, the
least possible drapery, and a good library. In the garden was a
pavilion enclosing a marble swimming tank. Plates of luscious fruits
and cooling drinks were constantly passed about by the coloured
servants, who looked as if they had even less to do than their
masters. Anne was given a large room at the top of the house from
which she could see the water, the white road where the negro women,
with great baskets on their heads and followed by their brood, passed
the fine carriages from Bath House; and, on all sides, save above, the
rich cane fields. Byam Warner came to breakfast and remained to
dinner.

Miss Ogilvy was in her element. To use her own expression, Nevis and
Bath House were in an uproar. The unforeseen engagement following on
the heels of the famous poet's transformation, the haughty departure
of Mrs. Nunn, and the manifest approval of Lady Hunsdon and Lady
Constance, who called assiduously at The Grange, the distinguished
ancestry and appearance of Miss Percy, and the fact that the wedding
was to take place on the island instead of in London, combined to make
a sensation such as Nevis had not known since the marriage of Nelson
and Mrs. Nisbet in 1787. Strange memories of Byam Warner were
dismissed. He was a great poet and Nevis's very own. Never had Nevis
so loved Medora. The Grange overflowed with visitors every afternoon,
the piano tinkled out dance music half the night.

It was quite a week before Lord Hunsdon called at the Grange, nor did
Anne and Medora meet him, even when lunching at Bath House. But one
morning he rode out, and after a few moments of constrained politeness
in the drawing-room, deliberately asked Anne to walk with him in the