ir, for except in the cold nights of a
brief winter only the jalousies were closed; and on that high shelf even
the late summer and early autumn were not insufferable. Exhausted as the
trade winds become, they give what little strength is in them to the
heights of their favourite isles, and during the rest of the year they
are so constant, even when storms rage in the North Atlantic, that Nevis
and St. Christopher never feel the full force of the sun, and the winter
nights are cold.

Rachael was four years old when her parents separated, and grew to
womanhood remembering nothing of her father and seeing little of her
kin, scattered far and wide. Her one unmarried sister, upon her return
from England, went almost immediately to visit Mrs. Lytton, and married
Thomas Mitchell, one of the wealthiest planters of St. Croix. Mary
Fawcett's children had not approved her course, for they remembered
their father as the most indulgent and charming of men, whose frequent
tempers were quickly forgotten; and year by year she became more wholly
devoted to the girl who clung to her with a passionate and uncritical
affection.

Clever and accomplished herself, and quick with ambition for her best
beloved child, she employed the most cultivated tutors on the Island to
instruct her in English, Latin, and French. Before Rachael was ten years
old, Mistress Fawcett had the satisfaction to discover that the little
girl possessed a distinguished mind, and took to hard study, and to _les
graces_, as naturally as she rode a pony over the hills or shot the reef
in her boat.

For several years the women of St. Christopher held aloof, but many of
the planters who had been guests at the Great House in Gingerland called
on Mistress Fawcett at once, and proffered advice and service. Of these
William Hamilton and Archibald Hamn became her staunch and intimate
friends. Mr. Hamn's estate adjoined hers, and his overlooker relieved
her of much care. Dr. James Hamilton, who had died in the year preceding
her formal separation, had been a close friend of her husband and
herself, and his brother hastened with assurance of his wish to serve
her. He was one of the eminent men of the Island, a planter and a member
of Council; also, a "doctor of physic." He carried Rachael safely
through her childhood complaints and the darkest of her days; and if his
was the hand which opened the gates between herself and history, who
shall say in the light of the glorified re