The grass-grown road he followed was indeed an avenue to the great house, and as he neared his destination he passed another glimpse of tropical scenery without a glance. It was the same view that delighted the eyes of the Marquise daily from her sitting-room, and that Cerise would look at in quiet enjoyment for hours. A slope of vivid green, dotted with almond-trees, stretched away from the long, low, white building to a broad, clear river, shining between the plantains and bananas that clothed its banks; beyond these, cattle pasture and cane-pieces shot upward in variegated stripes through the tangled jungle of the steep ascent, while at short intervals hog-plum, or other tall trees of the forest, reared their heads against the cloudless sky, to break the dark thick mass that clothed the mountain to its very summit—save where some open, natural savannah, with its crop of tall, rank, feathering grass, relieved the eye from the vivid colouring and gaudy exuberance of beauty in which nature dresses these West Indian islands. Bartoletti knew well that he should find the Marquise in her sitting-room, for the sun was still high and the heat intense; none therefore but slaves, slave-drivers, or overseers would be abroad for hours. The Signor had however been reduced to such proper subjection by Célandine that he never ventured to approach the Marquise without making a previous report to his wife, and as the Quadroon had not yet returned from the visit to Port Welcome, in which she made acquaintance with Slap-Jack, some considerable delay took place before the enormity of Fleurette’s peculations could be communicated to her mistress. Mother and daughter were inseparable here, in the glowing tropical heat, as under the cool breezes and smiling skies of their own beautiful France, a land to which they constantly reverted with a longing that seemed only to grow more and more intense as every hour of their unwelcome banishment dragged by.