ou ask? To the black-eyed daughters of the richer townspeople,
and to one or two demoiselles belonging to Spanish families down the
coast, sent up to Beata to be educated by the nuns. The good Sisters did
their best, but they knew little, poor things, and were glad to call in
Miss Elisabetha with her trills and quavers; so the wiry organ in the
little cathedral sounded out the ballads and _romanzas_ of Monsieur
Vocard, and the demoiselles learned to sing them in their broken French,
no doubt greatly to the satisfaction of the golden-skinned old fathers
and mothers on the plantations down the coast. The _padre_ in charge of
the parish had often importuned Miss Elisabetha to play this organ on
Sundays, as the decorous celebration of high-mass suffered sadly, not to
say ludicrously, from the blunders of poor Sister Paula. But Miss
Elisabetha briefly refused; she must draw a line somewhere, and a pagan
ceremonial she could not countenance. The Daarg family, while abhorring
greatly the Puritanism of the New England colonies, had yet held
themselves equally aloof from the image-worship of Rome; and they had
always considered it one of the inscrutable mysteries of Providence that
the French nation, so skilled in polite attitude, so versed in the
singing of _romanzas_, should yet have been allowed to remain so long in
ignorance of the correct religious mean.

The old house was managed with the nicest care. Its thick coquina-walls
remained solid still, and the weak spots in the roof were mended with a
thatch of palmetto and tar, applied monthly under the mistress's
superintendence by Viny, who never ceased to regard the performance as a
wonder of art, accustomed as she was to the Beata fashion of letting
roofs leak when they wanted to, the family never interfering, but
encamping on the far side of the flow with calm undisturbed. The few
pieces of furniture were dusted and rubbed daily, and the kitchen
department was under martial law; the three had enough to eat--indeed,
an abundance--oysters, fish, and clams, sweet potatoes from the garden,
and various Northern vegetables forced to grow under the vigilant
nursing they received, but hating it, and coming up as spindling as they
could. The one precious cow gave them milk and butter, the
well-conducted hens gave them eggs; flour and meal, coffee and tea,
hauled across the barrens from the great river, were paid for in
palmetto-work. Yes, Miss Elisabetha's household, in fact, lived