“Quite possible, sir,” responded the Signor.  “I have known several similar instances in this city.  But in this case I was surprised, because I never knew their mother was a slave.  She was a singularly handsome and ladylike woman.”

“How was it possible that Mr. Royal neglected to manumit her?” inquired the young man.

“I suppose he never thought of her otherwise than as his wife, and never dreamed of being otherwise than rich,” rejoined the Signor.”  Besides, you know how often death does overtake men with their duties half fulfilled.  He did manumit his daughters a few months before his decease; but it was decided that he was then too deeply in debt to have a right to dispose of any portion of his property.”

“Property!” echoed the indignant young man.  “Such a term applied to women makes me an Abolitionist.”

“Please not to speak that word aloud,” responded the Italian.  “I was in prison several weeks on the charge of helping off those interesting pupils of mine, and I don’t know what might have become of me, if Mr. Fitzgerald had not helped me by money and influence.  I have my own opinions about slavery, but I had rather go out of New Orleans before I express them.”

“A free country indeed!” exclaimed the young man, “where one cannot safely express his indignation against such enormities.  But tell me how the girls were rescued from such a dreadful fate; for by the assurance you gave me at the outset that they needed no assistance, I infer that they were rescued.”

He listened with as much composure as he could to the account of Mr. Fitzgerald’s agency in their escape, his marriage, Rosabella’s devoted love for him, and her happy home on a Paradisian island.  The Signor summed it up by saying, “I believe her happiness has been entirely without alloy, except the sad fate of her sister, of which we heard a few weeks ago.”

“What has happened to her?” inquired Alfred, with eager interest.

“She went to the sea-shore to gather mosses, and never returned,” replied the Signor.  “It is supposed she slipped into the water and was drowned, or that she was seized by an alligator.”

“O horrid!” exclaimed Alfred.  “Poor Floracita!  What a bright, beaming little beauty she was!  But an alligator’s mouth was a better fate than slavery.”

“Again touching upon the dangerous topic!” rejoined the Signor.  “If you stay here long, I think you and the prison-walls will become acquainted.  But here is what used to be poor Mr. Royal’s happy home, and yonder is where Madame Papanti resides,—­the Madame Guirlande I told you of, who befriended the poor orphans when they had no other friend.  Her kindness to them, and her courage in managing for them, was what first put it in my head to ask her to be my wife.  Come in and have a tete-a-tete with her, sir.  She knew the girls from the time they were born, and she loved them like a mother.”

Within the house, the young man listened to a more prolonged account, some of the details of which were new, others a repetition.  Madame dwelt with evident satisfaction on the fact that Rosa, in the midst of all her peril, refused to accept the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald, unless she were married to him; because she had so promised her father, the night before he died.