dark green leaves.

Anne shook herself out of her dream, descended the terraces, and walked down a narrow avenue of royal palms to the town. She could hear the “Oyez! Oyez!” of the criers announcing the wares brought in from the country, and, eager for the new picture, walked as rapidly as her fine frock would permit. She was obliged to hold up her long and voluminous skirts, and her sleeves were so tight that the effort cramped her arms. To stride after her usual fashion was impossible, and she ambled along anathematising fashion and resolved to buy some cotton in the town and privately make several short skirts in which she could enjoy the less frequented parts of Nevis while her aunt slept. Without realising it, for nothing in her monotonous life had touched her latent characteristics, she was essentially a creature of action. Even her day-dreams had been energetic, and if they had filled her life it was because they had the field to themselves. In earlier centuries she would have defended one of the castles of her ancestors with as much efficiency and spirit as any man among them, and had she been born thirty years later she would certainly have entered one of the careers open to women, and filled her life with active accomplishment. But she knew little of female careers, save, to be sure, of those dedicated to fashion, which did not interest her; and less of self-analysis. But she felt and lived in the present moment intensely. For twenty-two years she had dwelt in the damp and windy North, and now the dream of those years was fulfilled and she was amidst the warmth and glow of the tropics. It was the greatest happiness that life had offered her and she abandoned herself to it headlong.

As she entered the capital she suddenly became aware that she was holding her skirts high over her hoop in a most unladylike manner. She blushed, shook them down, and assumed a carriage and gait which would have been approved by even the fastidious Mrs. Nunn. But she was no less interested in the animated scene about her. The long street winding from the Court House to the churchyard on the farther edge of the town was a mass of moving colour and a babel of sound. The women, ranging from ebony through all the various shades of copper and olive to that repulsive white where the dark blood seems to flow just beneath the skin, and bedecked in all the violence of blues and greens, reds and yellows, some in country costume, their heads covered with kerchiefs, others in a travesty on the prevailing fashion, stood in their shops or behind the long double row of temporary stalls, vociferating at the passers by as they called attention to fowl, meats, hot soup, fruit, vegetables, wild birds, fish, cigars, sugar cakes, castor oil, cloth, handkerchiefs, and wood. Many of the early buyers were negroes of the better class, others servants of the white planters and of Bath House, come early to secure the best bargains. Anne was solicited incessantly, even her skirts being pulled, for since emancipation, four years before, the negro had lost his awe of a white skin. It was some time before she could separate the gibberish into words, but finally she made out: “Bargain! Bargain! Here’s yo’ fine cowfee! Here’s yo’ pickled peppers! Come see! Come see! Only come see! Make you buy. Want any jelly cocoanut? Any yams? Nice grenadilla. Make yo’ mouth water. Lady! Lady! Buy here! Very cheap! Very nice! Real!”

Anne paused before a stall spread with cotton cloth and bought enough for several skirts, the result of her complaisance being a siege of itinerant vendors that nearly deafened her. The big women were literally covered with their young (“pic’nees”), who clung to their skirts, waist, hips, bosoms; and these mites, with the parrot proclivities of their years and race added their shrill: “By’m, lady, by’m!”

The proprietor of the cloth volubly promised to deliver the purchase at Bath House and Anne fled down the street until she was stopped by a drove of sheep whose owner was crying: “Oyez! Oyez! Come to the shambles of Mr. Columbus Brown. Nice fat lambs and big fat sheep. Very cheap! Very cheap!”

Anne retreated into a shop of some depth to avoid the dust. When the drove had passed she was rescued by Lord Hunsdon, who lifted his broad panama without smiling. He was a very serious looking young man, with round staring anxious blue eyes under pent white brows, an ascetic mouth and a benevolent dome. He was immaculate in white linen, and less pinched about the waist than his fashionable contemporaries.

“I believe it is not considered quite de rigueur for young ladies and young gentlemen to walk unchaperoned,” he said diffidently; “but in the circumstances I think I may come to your relief and escort you back to the hotel.”

“Not yet, please,” Anne emerged and walked rapidly toward the edge of the town. “I cannot go back and sit in the hotel till half past nine. I am accustomed to a long walk before breakfast.”

“But Mrs. Nunn——”

“She must get used to my tramps. I should fall ill if I gave them up. Indeed, she is sadly aware that I am no fine lady, and no doubt will shortly give me up. But if you are afraid of her, pray go back. I recall, she said I was not to be escorted——”

“If you are determined to go on I shall accompany you, particularly as I wish to talk to you on a subject of great importance. Have I your permission?”

Quite lacking in vanity or worldliness, it was impossible that he should be unaware of his importance as a young, wealthy, and unmarried peer, and he shrewdly suspected that Mrs. Nunn would make an exception in his favour on market day in Charlestown.

Anne, wondering what he could have to say to her, led the way past the church to the open road that encircled the island. Then she moderated her pace and looked up at him from the deeps of her bonnet. Her gaze was cooler and more impersonal than he was wont to encounter, but it crossed his burdened mind that a blooming face even if unfashionably sunburnt, and a supple vigorous body were somewhat attractive after a surfeit of dolls with their languid fine-lady airs and affectation of physical delicacy; which he, being no fool, suspected of covering fine appetites and stubborn selfishness. But while he was young enough to admire the fresh beauty of his companion, it was the strength and decision, the subtle suggestion of high-mindedness, in this young lady’s aspect, which had led him to a resolution that he now proceeded to arrange in words as politic as might be.

“It may seem presumptuous to speak after so short an acquaintance——”

“Not after your rescue last night. I had like to have died of embarrassment. I am not accustomed to have half a room gazing at me.”

“You will,” he said gallantly. “But it is kind of you to make it easier. This is it. I have been—am—very unhappy about a friend of mine here. Of course you know the work of one, who, many believe, is our greatest poet—Byam Warner?”

Anne drew her breath in and her eyelashes together. “I have read his poems,” she said shortly.

“I see! Like many others you cannot dissociate the genius from the man. Because a fatal weakness——”

“What have I said, pray, that you should jump to such a conclusion?” She had recovered her breath but not her poise. “No one could admire him more than I. About his private life I know little and care less. He lives on this island, does he not?”

“We shall pass his house presently, but God knows if he is in it.”