“But this is not fun; indeed it is not,” rejoined Flora.  “I am a colored girl.”

She spoke so earnestly that the lady began to doubt the evidence of her own eyes.  “But you told me that Mr. Alfred Royal was your father,” said she.

“So he was my father,” replied Flora; “and the kindest father that ever was.  Rosa and I were brought up like little princesses, and we never knew that we were colored.  My mother was the daughter of a rich Spanish gentleman named Gonsalez.  She was educated in Paris, and was elegant and accomplished.  She was handsomer than Rosa; and if you were to see Rosa, you would say nobody could be handsomer than she is.  She was good, too.  My father was always saying she was the dearest and best wife in the world.  You don’t know how he mourned when she died.  He couldn’t bear to have anything moved that she had touched.  But cher papa died very suddenly; and first they told us that we were very poor, and must earn our living; and then they told us that our mother was a slave, and so, according to law, we were slaves too.  They would have sold us at auction, if a gentleman who knew us when papa was alive hadn’t smuggled us away privately to Nassau.  He had been very much in love with Rosa for a good while; and he married her, and I live with them.  But he keeps us very much hidden; because, he says, he should get into lawsuits and duels and all sorts of troubles with papa’s creditors if they should find out that he helped us off.  And that was the reason I was called Senorita Gonsalez in Nassau, though my real name is Flora Royal.”

She went on to recount the kindness of Madame Guirlande, and the exciting particulars of their escape; to all of which Mrs. Delano listened with absorbed attention.  As they sat thus, they made a beautiful picture.  The lady, mature in years, but scarcely showing the touch of time, was almost as fair as an Albiness, with serene lips, and a soft moonlight expression in her eyes.  Every attitude and every motion indicated quietude and refinement.  The young girl, on the contrary, even when reclining, seemed like impetuosity in repose for a moment, but just ready to spring.  Her large dark eyes laughed and flashed and wept by turns, and her warmly tinted face glowed like the sunlight, in its setting of glossy black hair.  The lady looked down upon her with undisguised admiration while she recounted their adventures in lively dramatic style, throwing in imitations of the whistling of Ca ira, and the tones of the coachman as he sang, “Who goes there?”

“But you have not told me,” said Mrs. Delano, “who the gentleman was that married your sister.  Ah, I see you hesitate.  No matter.  Only tell me one thing,—­is he kind to you?”

Flora turned red and pale, and red again.

“Let that pass, too,” said the lady.  “I asked because I wished to know if I could help you in any way.  I see you have brought some more boxes of shell-work, and by and by we will examine them.  But first I want to tell you that I also have a secret, and I will confide it to you that you may feel assured I shall love you always.  Flora, dear, when your father and I were young, we were in love with each other, and I promised to be his wife.”