Madame de Montmirail knew neither pity nor remorse. She had the softest eyes, the smoothest skin, the sweetest voice in the bounds of France, but her heart was declared by all to be harder than the very diamonds that became her so well. Nor, though she seldom missed a chance of securing smiles and compliments, did she seem inclined to afford opportunity for advances of a more positive kind. Cerise was usually in her arms, or on her lap; and suitors of every time must have been constrained to admit that there is no _duenna_ like a daughter. Besides, the child’s beauty was of a nature so different from her mother’s, that the most accomplished coxcomb found it difficult to word his admiration of mademoiselle so as to infer a yet stronger approval of madame herself. The slightest blunder, too, was as surely made public as it was quickly detected. The Marquise never denied herself or her friends an opportunity for a laugh, and her sarcasm was appropriate as pitiless; so to become a declared admirer of Madame de Montmirail required a good deal of that courage which is best conveyed by the word _sang-froid_. And even for those reckless spirits, who neither feared the mother’s wit nor respected the daughter’s presence, there was yet another difficulty to encounter in the person of the child’s _bonne_, a middle-aged quadroon to whom Cerise was ardently attached, and who never left her mistress’s side when not employed in dressing or undressing her charge. This faithful retainer, originally a slave on the La-Fierté estates, had passed—with lands, goods, and chattels—into the possession of the Marquise after the death of her mother, the duchess, who was said to have a black drop of blood in her veins, and immediately transferred her fidelity and affections to her present owner. She was a large, strong woman, with the remains of great beauty. Her age might be anything under fifty; and she was known at Court as “The Mother of Satan,” a title she accepted with considerable gratification, and much preferred to the sweeter-sounding name of Célandine, by which she was called on the West Indian estate and in the family of her proprietors. Notwithstanding her good looks, there was something about Célandine that made her an object of dread to her fellow-servants, whether slaves or free. The woman’s manner was scowling and suspicious, she suffered from long fits of despondency; she muttered and gesticulated to herself; she walked about during the night, when the rest of the household were in bed. Altogether she gave occasion, by her behaviour, to those detractors who affirmed that, whether his _mother_ or not, there was no doubt she was a faithful worshipper of Satan.