of the Islands.  Mary Fawcett, admirable manager as she was, had been lavish with money, particularly when her favourite child was in question; and Rachael’s imagination had never worked toward the fact that money could roll down hill and not roll up again.  She was long in discovering that the man she loved and admired was a failure in the uninteresting world of business.  He was a brilliant and charming companion, read in the best literatures of the world, a thoughtful and adoring husband.  It availed Archibald Hamn nothing to rage or Dr. Hamilton to remonstrate.  Rachael gradually learned that Hamilton was not as strong as herself, but the maternal instinct, so fully aroused by her child, impelled her to fill out his nature with hers, while denying nothing to the man who did all he could to make her happy.

In the third year Hamilton gave up his sail-boat, and had himself rowed across the Narrows, where the overlooker of a salt estate he had bought awaited him with a horse.  Once he would have thought nothing of walking the eight miles to Basseterre, but the Tropics, while they sharpen the nerves, caress unceasingly the indolence of man.  During the hurricane season he crossed as often as he thought necessary, for with expert oarsmen there was little danger, even from squalls, and the distance was quickly covered.

Gradually Rachael’s position was accepted.  Nothing could alter the fact that she was the daughter of Dr. and Mary Fawcett, and Hamilton was of the best blood in the Kingdom.  She was spoken of generally as Mistress Hamilton, and old friends of her parents began to greet her pleasantly as she drove about the Island with her beautiful child.  In time they called, and from that it was but another step to invite, as a matter of course, the young Hamiltons to their entertainments.  After all, Rachael was not the first woman in tropical Great Britain to love a man she could not marry, and it was fatiguing to ask the everlasting question of whether the honesty of a public irregular alliance were not counterbalanced by its dangerous example.  It was a day of loose morals, the first fruit of the vast scientific movement of the century, whose last was the French Revolution.  Moreover, the James Hamiltons were delightful people, and life on the Islands was a trifle monotonous at times; they brought into Nevis society fresh and unusual personalities, spiced with a salient variety.  Hamilton might almost be said to have been born an astute man of the world.  He opened his doors with an accomplished hospitality to the most intelligent and cultivated people of the Island, ignoring those who based their social pretensions on rank and wealth alone.  In consequence he and his wife became the leaders of a small and exclusive set, who appreciated their good fortune.  Dr. Hamilton and a few other Kittifonians were constant visitors in this hospitable mansion.  Christiana Huggins, who had taken a bold stand from the first, carried her father there one day in triumph, and that austere parent laid down his arms.  All seemed well, and the crumbling of the foundations made no sound.