But the hapless girl had been piously brought up; she could still believe and pray; and lately it had seemed as though Heaven would grant that for which her tender heart most longed:  the love of a beloved and love-worthy man.  And now—­now?

There she stood with an inconsolable sense of bereavement—­empty-hearted; and if she had been miserable before Orion’s return, now she was far more so; for whereas she had then been lonely she was now defrauded—­she, the daughter of Thomas, the relation and inmate of the wealthiest house in the country; and close to her, from the rough hewn, dirty dyers’ sheds such clear and happy laughter rang out from a troop of wretched slave wenches, always liable to the blows of the overseer’s rod, that she could not help listening and turning to look at the girls on whom such an overflow of high spirits and light-heartedness was bestowed.

A large party had collected under the wide palm-thatched roof of the dyeing shed-pretty and ugly, brown and fair, tall and short; some upright and some bent by toil at the loom from early youth, but all young; not one more than eighteen years old.  Slaves were capital, bearing interest in the form of work and of children.  Every slave girl was married to a slave as soon as she was old enough.  Girls and married women alike were employed in the weaving shop, but the married ones slept in separate quarters with their husbands and children, while the maids passed the night in large sleeping-barracks adjoining the worksheds.  They were now enjoying the evening respite and had gathered in two groups.  One party were watching an Egyptian girl who was scribbling sketches on a tablet; the others were amusing themselves with a simple game.  This consisted in each one in turn flinging her shoe over her head.  If it flew beyond a chalk-line to which she turned her back she was destined soon to marry the man she loved; if it fell between her and the mark she must yet have patience, or would be united to a companion she did not care for.

The girl who was drawing, and round whom at least twenty others were crowded, was a designer of patterns for weaving; she had too the gift which had characterized her heathen ancestors, of representing faces in profile, with a few simple lines, in such a way that, though often comically distorted, they were easily recognizable.  She was executing these works of art on a wax tablet with a copper stylus, and the others were to guess for whom they were meant.

One girl only sat by herself by the furthest post of the shed, and gazed silently into her lap.