She had found her boy at last. Her first-born, the image of her first love. Her heart warmed to him from the very moment he came near her at the store. She was sure of it long before she recognised the mark on his neck—the same white mark she had kissed a thousand times, when he danced and crowed on her knees. It was joy, it was triumph. But she must be very silent, very cautious. If it was hard that a mother might not openly claim her son, it would be harder still that such acknowledgment should rivet on him the yoke of a slavery to which he was born by that mother, herself a slave. CHAPTER XXX MONTMIRAIL WEST At a distance of less than a league from Port Welcome stood the large and flourishing plantation of _Cash-a-crou_, known to the European population, and, indeed, to many of the negroes, by the more civilised appellation of Montmirail West. It was the richest and most important establishment on the island, covering a large extent of cultivation, reclaimed at no small cost of labour from the bush, and worked by a numerous gang of slaves. Not a negro was purchased for these grounds till he had undergone a close inspection by the shrewd and pitiless overseer, who never missed a good investment, be it Coromantee, Guinea-man, or Congo, and never bought a hand, of however plausible an appearance, in whom his quick eye could detect a flaw; consequently, no such cheerful faces, fresh lips, sound teeth, strong necks, open chests, sinewy arms, dry, large hands, flat stomachs, powerful loins, round thighs, muscular calves, lean ankles, high feet, and similar physical points of servile symmetry, were to be found in any other gang as in that which worked the wide clearings on the _Cash-a-crou_ estate, which, for convenience, we will call by its more civilised name. It was said, however, that in the purchase of female negroes this overseer was not so particular; that a saucy eye, a nimble tongue, and such an amount of good looks as is compatible with African colouring and features, found more favour in his judgment than size, strength, substance, vigorous health, or the prolific qualities so desirable in these investments. The overseer, indeed, was a married man, living, it was thought, in wholesome dread of his Quadroon wife, and so completely did he identify himself with the new character he had assumed, that even Célandine could hardly believe her present husband was the same Stefano Bartoletti who had wooed her unsuccessfully in her girlhood, had met her again under such strange circumstances in France, eventually to follow her fortunes, and those of her mistress, the Marquise, and obtain from the latter the supervision of her negroes on the estate she had inherited by her mother’s will, which she chose to call Montmirail West.