which made the poor mulatto’s heart flutter terribly; ‘so here you are, as you promised! I’m so glad you’ve come this evening.—And have you brought Miss Whitaker with you?’ The mulatto hesitated and stammered. She could not possibly have asked him a more _mal à propos_ question. The poor young man looked about him feebly, and then answered in a low voice: ‘Yes; my father and sister are here somewhere.’ ‘Nora, my dear,’ her chaperon said in a tone of subdued feminine thunder, ‘I didn’t know you had the pleasure of Miss Whitaker’s acquaintance.’ ‘Neither have I, Mrs Pereira; but perhaps Dr Whitaker will be good enough to introduce me.—Not now, thank you, Dr Whitaker; I don’t want you to run away this minute and fetch your sister. Some other time will do as well. It’s so seldom, you know, we have the chance of a good talk now, together.’ Dr Whitaker smiled and stammered. It was possible, of course, to accept Nora’s reluctance in either of two senses: she might be anxious that he should stop and talk to her; or she might merely wish indefinitely to postpone the pleasure of making Miss Euphemia’s personal acquaintance; but she flooded him so with the light of her eyes as she spoke, that he chose to put the most flattering of the two alternative interpretations upon her ambiguous sentence. ‘You are very good to say so,’ he answered, still timidly; and Nora noticed how very different was his manner of speaking now from the self-confident Dr Whitaker of the old _Severn_ days. Trinidad had clearly crushed all the confidence as well as all the enthusiasm clean out of him. ‘You are very good, indeed, Miss Dupuy; I wish the opportunities for our meeting occurred oftener.’ He stood talking beside her for a minute or two longer, uttering the mere polite commonplaces of ballroom conversation—the heat of the evening, the shortcomings of the band, the beauty of the flowers—when suddenly Nora gave a little jump and seized her programme with singular discomposure. Dr Whitaker looked up at once, and divined by instinct the cause of her hasty movement. Tom Dupuy, just fresh from the cane-cutting, was looking about for her down the long corridor at the opposite end of the inner garden. ‘Where’s my cousin? Have you seen my cousin?’ he was asking everybody; for the seat where Nora was sitting with Mrs Pereira stood under the shade of a big papaw tree, and so it was impossible for him to discern her face, though she could see his features quite distinctly. ‘I won’t dance with that horrid man, my cousin Tom!’ Nora said in her most decided voice. ‘I’m quite sure he’s coming here this minute on purpose to ask me.’ ‘Is your programme full?’ Dr Whitaker inquired with a palpitating heart. ‘No; not quite,’ she answered, and handed it to him encouragingly. There was just one dance still left vacant—the next waltz. ‘I’m too tired to dance it out,’ Nora cried pettishly. ‘The horrid man! I hope he won’t see me.’