trove not to lose
a single motion, a single modulation, or a single sigh.

XIX.

"I was born," she said, "in the same land as Virginia (for the poet's
fancy has given a real birthplace to his dream), in an island of the
tropics. You may have guessed it from the color of my hair, and from my
complexion, which is paler than that of European women. You must have
perceived, too, the accent which still lingers on my lips. In truth, I
rather wish to preserve that accent as my only memento of my native
land; it recalls to my mind the plaintive and harmonious sounds of the
sea-breeze that are heard at noon beneath the lofty palms. You may also
have noticed that incorrigible indolence of walk and attitude, so
different from the vivacity of French women, which indicates in the
Creole a wild and natural frankness that knows not how to feign or to
dissemble.

"My family name is D----, and my own is Julie. My mother was lost in a
boat in attempting to leave our native island during an insurrection of
the blacks. I was washed ashore and saved by a black woman, who took
care of me for several years, and then delivered me over to my father.
He brought me to France when I was six years old, with an elder sister,
and a short time after he died in poverty and exile in the house of
some poor relations, who had hospitably received us in Brittany. The
second mother whom I had found in exile provided for my education until
her death, and, at twelve years old, I was adopted by the government as
being the daughter of a man who had done some service to his country.

"I was brought up in all the luxurious splendor, and amid the choice
friendships of those sumptuous houses, in which the State receives the
daughters of those who die for their country. I grew in years, in
talent, and also, it was said, in beauty. Mine was a grave and saddened
grace, like the flower of some tropical plant blooming awhile beneath a
foreign sky. But my useless beauty and my unavailing talents gladdened
no eye or heart beyond the narrow precincts in which I was confined. My
companions, with whom I had formed those close intimacies which make
the friends of childhood the kindred of the heart, had all left, one by
one, to join their mothers, or to follow their husbands. No mother took
me home; no relation came to visit me; no young man heard of me, or
sought me for his wife. I was saddened by these successive departures
of all my friends, and felt sorrowful to