dalite!" exclaimed Wynnette, turning her back on the finery, and going
straight up to where her sister sat alone in her sadness.

Disregarding the presence of others in the room, the impetuous little lady
struck at once into the middle of her subject.

"Odalite! It is not true--it cannot be true--that you are going to throw
over your own dear true love--our own darling Le, whom we have known all
our lives--just to marry that foreign beat, whom nobody knows anything
about--I mean that British colonel, who is almost a stranger to us?"

Wynnette was terrified at the result of her question.

Odalite bent forward, threw her arms around her sister's neck, and burst
into a storm of sobs and tears.

Mrs. Force wisely forbore to interfere.

The colored woman looked on philosophically. She had seen hysterical
brides before now.

Wynnette clasped her sister close to her bosom, and cried for company.

Presently Odalite raised her head, wiped the traces of tears from her
face, and taking the hands of her sister, looked earnestly up to her, and
speaking more solemnly than she had ever done before, said:

"Father and mother have consented that I may. Wynnette, if you love me,
never, never speak to me of this again."

The little girl kissed her sister in perfect silence, saying to herself:

"He has bewitched her--there's where it is! He must have learned magic
when he was in India, and he has bewitched her!"

A joyful commotion in the hall below, a chorus of voices in glad surprise,
and of dogs in eager welcoming barks, attracted the instant attention of
all who were present in the room.

"Oh, mother! what is it? What is it? Has--has----Oh, mother!" exclaimed
Odalite, half rising, then sinking back and grasping the arm of her chair,
pale as death.

But before Mrs. Force could go to her daughter, the door was
unceremoniously burst open by an excited negro girl, who, with her eyes
starting, and her hair bristling, not with horror, but with delight, burst
into the room, exclaiming:

"Marse Le is come home! Marse Le is come home! 'Deed he is, missus! 'Deed
he is, Miss Odalite!"

And in another instant the young sailor rushed into the room with a joyous
bound, almost whooping:

"Here I am, auntie! Here I am, cousins! Ship reached New York yesterday
morning, and here I am to-day! And old Joshua knew me! Indeed he did,
after three years. Where is she? Where is she! Where is my pet?" he asked
eagerly, after hastily kissing