regarded England as the greatest of countries, and Jamaica as the greatest of colonies.  But much as she loved England she was very loud in denouncing what she called the perfidy of the mother to the brightest of her children.  And much as she loved Jamaica she was equally severe in her taunts against those of her brother-islanders who would not believe that the island might yet flourish as it had flourished in her father’s days.

“It is because you and men like you will not do your duty by your country,” she had said some score of times to Maurice—not with much justice considering the laboriousness of his life.

But Maurice knew well what she meant.  “What could I do there up at Spanish Town,” he would answer, “among such a pack as there are there?  Here I may do something.”

And then she would reply with the full swing of her eloquence, “It is because you and such as you think only of yourself and not of Jamaica, that Jamaica has come to such a pass as this.  Why is there a pack there as you call them in the honourable House of Assembly?  Why are not the best men in the island to be found there, as the best men in England are to be found in the British House of Commons?  A pack, indeed!  My father was proud of a seat in that house, and I remember the day, Maurice Cumming, when your father also thought it no shame to represent his own parish.  If men like you, who have a stake in the country, will not go there, of course the house is filled with men who have no stake.  If they are a pack, it is you who send them there;—you, and others like you.”

All had its effect, though at the moment Maurice would shrug his shoulders and turn away his head from the torrent of the lady’s discourse.  But Miss Jack, though she was not greatly liked, was greatly respected.  Maurice would not own that she convinced him; but at last he did allow his name to be put up as candidate for his own parish, and in due time he became a member of the honourable House of Assembly in Jamaica.

This honour entails on the holder of it the necessity of living at or within reach of Spanish Town for some ten weeks towards the chose of every year.  Now on the whole face of the uninhabited globe there is perhaps no spot more dull to look at, more Lethean in its aspect, more corpse-like or more cadaverous than Spanish Town.  It is the head-quarters of the government, the seat of the legislature, the residence of the governor;—but nevertheless it is, as it were, a city of the very dead.

Here, as we have said before, lived Miss Jack in a large forlorn ghost-like house in which her father and all her family had lived before her.  And as a matter of course Maurice Cumming when he came up to attend to his duties as a member of the legislature took up his abode with her.

Now at the time of which we are specially speaking he had completed the first of these annual visits.  He had already benefited his country by sitting out one session of the colonial parliament, and had satisfied himself that he did no other good than that of keeping away some person more objectionable than himself.  He was however prepared to repeat this self-sacrifice in a spirit of patriotism for which he received a very meagre meed of eulogy from Miss Jack, and an amount of self-applause which was not much more extensive.

“Down at Mount Pleasant I can do something,” he would say over and over again, “but what good can any man do up here?”

“You can do your duty,” Miss Jack would answer, “as others did before you when the colony was made to prosper.”  And then they would run off into a long discussion about free labour and protective duties.  But at the present moment Maurice Cumming had another vexation on his mind over and above that arising from his wasted hours at Spanish Town, and his fruitless labours at Mount Pleasant.  He was in love, and was not altogether satisfied with the conduct of his lady-love.

Miss Jack had other nephews besides Maurice Cumming, and nieces also, of whom Marian Leslie was one.  The family of the Leslies lived up near Newcastle—in the mountains, that is, which stand over Kingston—at a distance of some eighteen miles from Kingston, but in a climate as different from that of the town as the climate of Naples is from that of Berlin.  In Kingston the heat is all but intolerable throughout the year, by day and by night, in the house and out of it.  In the mountains round Newcastle, some four thousand feet above the sea, it is merely warm during the day, and cool enough at night to make a blanket desirable.

It is pleasant enough living up amongst those green mountains.  There are no roads there for wheeled carriages, nor are there carriages with or without wheels.  All journeys are made on horseback.  Every visit paid from house to house is performed in this manner.  Ladies young and old live before dinner in their riding-habits.  The hospitality is free, easy, and unembarrassed.  The scenery is magnificent.  The tropical foliage is wild and luxuriant beyond measure.  There may be enjoyed all that a southern climate has to offer of enjoyment, without the penalties which such enjoyments usually entail.

Mrs. Leslie was a half-sister of Miss Jack, and Miss Jack had been a half-sister also of Mrs. Cumming; but Mrs. Leslie and Mrs. Cumming had in no way been related.  And it had so happened that up to the period of his legislative efforts Maurice Cumming had seen nothing of the Leslies.  Soon after his arrival at Spanish Town he had been taken by Miss Jack to Shandy Hall, for so the residence of the Leslies was called, and having remained there for three days, had fallen in love with Marian Leslie.  Now in the West Indies all young ladies flirt; it is the first habit of their nature—and few young ladies in the West Indies were more given to flirting, or understood the science better than Marian Leslie.

Maurice Cumming fell violently in love, and during his first visit at Shandy Hall found that Marian was perfection—for during this first visit her propensities were exerted altogether in his own favour.  That little circumstance does make such a difference in a young man’s judgment of a girl!  He came back fall of admiration, not altogether to Miss Jack’s dissatisfaction; for Miss Jack was willing enough that both her nephew and her niece should settle down into married life.

But then Maurice met his fair one at a governor’s ball—at a ball where red coats abounded, and aides-de-camp dancing in spurs, and narrow-waisted lieutenants with sashes or epaulettes!  The aides-de-camp and narrow-waisted lieutenants waltzed better than he did; and as one after the other whisked round the ball-room with Marian firmly clasped in his arms, Maurice’s feelings were not of the sweetest.  Nor was this the worst of it.  Had the whisking been divided equally among ten, he might have forgiven it; but there was one specially narrow-waisted lieutenant, who towards the end of the evening kept Marian nearly wholly to himself.  Now to a man in love, who has had but little experience of either balls or young ladies, this is intolerable.

He only met her twice after that before his return to Mount Pleasant, and on the first occasion that odious soldier was not there.  But a specially devout young clergyman was present, an unmarried, evangelical, handsome young curate fresh from England; and Marian’s piety had been so excited that she had cared for no one else.  It appeared moreover that the curate’s gifts for conversion were confined, as regarded that opportunity, to Marion’s advantage.  “I will have nothing more to say to her,” said Maurice to himself, scowling.  But just as he went away Marian had given him her hand, and called him Maurice—for she pretended that they were cousins—and had looked into his eyes and declared that she did hope that the assembly at Spanish Town would soon be sitting again.  Hitherto, she said, she had not cared one straw about it.  Then poor Maurice pressed the little fingers