to _him_."

"Ise nothin' to complain of Massa Gerald," she answered; "but I'd like
better to belong to myself."

"So you'd like to be free, would you?" asked Flora.

"To be sure I would," said Tulee. "Yo like it yerself, don't ye,
little missy?"

Then, suddenly recollecting what a narrow escape her young lady had
had from the auction-stand, she hastened with intuitive delicacy to
change the subject. But the same thought had occurred to Flora; and
she fell asleep, thinking how Tulee's wishes could be gratified.

When morning floated upward out of the arms of night, in robe of
brightest saffron, the aspect of everything was changed. Floracita
sprang out of bed early, eager to explore the surroundings of their
new abode. The little lawn looked very beautiful, sprinkled all
over with a variety of wild-flowers, in whose small cups dewdrops
glistened, prismatic as opals. The shrubbery was no longer a dismal
mass of darkness, but showed all manner of shadings of glossy green
leaves, which the moisture of the night had ornamented with shimmering
edges of crystal beads. She found the phantom of the night before
browsing among flowers behind the cottage, and very kindly disposed to
make her acquaintance. As he had a thistle blossom sticking out of his
mouth, she forthwith named him Thistle. She soon returned to the
house with her apron full of vines, and blossoms, and prettily tinted
leaves. "See, Tulee," said she, "what a many flowers! I'm going
to make haste and dress the table, before Gerald and Rosa come to
breakfast." They took graceful shape under her nimble fingers, and,
feeling happy in her work, she began to hum,

"How brightly breaks the morning!"

"Whisper low!" sang Gerald, stealing up behind her, and making her
start by singing into her very ear; while Rosa exclaimed, "What a
fairy-land you have made here, with all these flowers,_pichoncita
mia_"

The day passed pleasantly enough, with some ambling along the
bridle-paths on Thistle's back, some reading and sleeping, and a good
deal of music. The next day, black Tom came with a barouche, and they
took a drive round the lovely island. The cotton-fields were all
abloom on Gerald's plantation, and his stuccoed villa, with spacious
veranda and high porch, gleamed out in whiteness among a magnificent
growth of trees, and a garden gorgeous with efflorescence. The only
drawback to the pleasure was, that Gerald charged them to wear thick
veils, and never to raise