Into this beautiful home-life Carmen now entered, as if into a new world.  Whereas, the affection between the Brothers and Sisters in the “community” had always appeared to her in the austere light of a duty, here it seemed like a natural impulse, springing spontaneously from the depths of warm and loving hearts.

In all the arrangements of the house and grounds, the idea of the beautiful, in connection with the comfortable and useful, was everywhere prominent.

The lofty, well-lighted rooms, adorned and furnished with elegant simplicity; the smooth green lawns, bordered with lovely flowers of every hue; the magnificent avenues of grand old trees, and the innumerable, lovely little nooks to be found here and there in the park, all breathed a charm which reminded Carmen of what she dimly remembered about her father’s plantation and hacienda in Jamaica.

Alexander and Hans were also at home for the holidays; and while Adele rambled with the latter through park and garden, Carmen, who shyly avoided Alexander, was entertained by her hostess, to whose warm motherly nature the girl was attracted with genuine, childlike heartiness.  It was indeed her society, more than anything else, which contributed to Carmen’s happiness at Wollmershain, for she felt embarrassed in this new kind of life; and the remarks which her peculiar dress occasioned were especially annoying.  To avoid being conspicuous, she had already laid aside the white cap; but her beauty, enhanced by the coils of glossy hair which crowned her queenly little head, was so remarkable, so foreign-looking and striking, that she seemed like some rare exotic which, in all the luxuriance of its loveliness, had been transplanted from the land of palms to our colder soil.  There was in her manner an odd mixture of pride and humility, dignity and modesty, which gave her all the reserve of a woman and the winsomeness of a child.  Perhaps it was the knowledge of the fact that the peculiarities of the Sisters elicited so much ridicule from the world that caused her to use her pride as a defence and a weapon, when in company with any one save Frau von Trautenau.  She always seemed ready to do battle with Alexander, and yet he had never by word or deed given cause for such a feeling.

“She is full of pluck and mettle like a thoroughbred horse!” said old General von Bergen, who, with his daughter and his adjutant, had come up from the barracks on a visit.  “It is a pleasure to provoke her; her eyes light up so.  Pohlen,” he said, turning to the adjutant, “you seemed to be unfortunate in your remarks to her during dinner; those lovely lips curled as scornfully as if you had seriously offended her, and her great eyes glowed like fire, as she looked away off, over your head.”

The gentleman addressed laughed as if amused.  “And yet I only ventured on some complimentary speeches.  I asked if all the Creoles were as beautiful as herself.  That was surely flattering enough, and I think this little Moravian ought, by this time, to possess some of the humility they pride themselves so much on, and not toss her head so haughtily and look at me so contemptuously.”