When I finished, I gave back the theorbo to Madam, curtsied to the gentlemen, and quickly stepped back to Madam's room, while they all bellowed and applauded and roared for me to come back again. But I put on my hood and slipped out to the cottage, where I lay down beside Deb, and quickly fell asleep. (It is a great happiness, in these hot latitudes, that, when a new-comer hath once got over the trouble of the merrywings, he falleth asleep the moment he lies down, and so sleeps through the whole night.) But in the morning Madam came to see me while I was sewing. 'Well, Child,' she said, laughing, 'thou hast gotten a lover who swears that he will soon have thee out of this hell.' 'A lover!' I cried. 'Nay!--that may God forbid!' ''Tis true. Young Mr. Anstiss it is. While thou wast singing he gazed on thy pretty face and listened as one enchanted. I wonder--but no!--thou hast no eyes for such things. And when thou wast gone he offered the master four times the sum he paid for thee--yea, four times--or six times--saying that he meant honourably, and that if any man dared to whisper anything to the contrary he would cut his throat.' 'Alas! Madam. I must never marry--either this Mr. Anstiss or any other.' 'Tut--tut. This is foolish maid's nonsense. Granted you have lost your old lover, there are plenty more. Suppose he hath lost his old sweetheart, there are plenty more--as I doubt not he hath already proved. Mr. Anstiss is a very pretty young gentleman; but the master would not listen, saying that he waited for the lady's friends.' And so passed six weeks, or thereabouts, for the only count of time I kept was from Sunday to Sunday. On that day we rested; the negroes, who are no better than heathens, danced. The white servants lay about in the shade, and drank what they could; in one cottage only on that godless estate were prayers offered. And then happened that great event which, in the end, proved to be a change in my whole life, and brought happiness out of misery, and joy out of suffering, though at first it seemed only a dreadful addition to my trouble. Thus is the course of things ordered for us, and thus the greatest blessings follow upon the most threatening juncture. What this was I will tell in a few words.