“Paqueta, Paqueteta, Paquete,” I called, throwing the Italian and English diminutives together to express more strongly the smallness, and, I may add, prettiness, of the little being whom I knew was listening for my voice. Paqueta sprang into the room with a shower of laughter, and rolled at my feet, and took them in her hands, and embraced them, and said that she was, indeed, very happy. Paqueta was one of those “pets” to be found in every creole family of Louisiana; and which seem to be as necessary to the completeness of the establishment, as was the fool among the nobler of our ancestors, some three centuries past. The pet is ever a slave, a little slave, sometimes full-blooded and jetty black, and sometimes so near upon white, as to puzzle the eye to find a trace of the African sun in its complexion. It is adopted from chance, or whim, and grows daily into the affections, until it becomes the most indulged, pampered, spoiled, cared-for, and idolized thing about the house. With the widest liberty, its chains hang in the air, or are made of those roses which the good people of Geneva put into Jean Jaque’s hands when they raised a monument to his Emile. Paqueta was a quateronne—a light quateronne, of exquisite features, and most fragile make; and, at the time of which I write, had eight years—eight years of happiness to her; for she knew not of her condition, knew not of any thing, save petting, from her birth to that hour. Thus it is that liberty is a breath, an airy something to be talked of, rather than enjoyed. What liberty have the poor? Are they not bound to labor, to a toil which is ceaseless, by the will of God, even to the grave! And what liberty have the rich? A change of place, and their own wills. Better it were that their own wills were bound about with clamps of iron three-fold deep. Paqueta was born upon the feast of Easter, and thence took her name—for the French call Easter-day “Paque;” and a paque it was, or a festival it was, from her birth unto her death. Her hair was long and straight, and black as night; while her eyes, ox-eyes, too, were deeply blue; as if nature, knowing her mixed race, were willing to carry out the mixture by a strange compound of opposing colors. Nothing could be more delicate and tapering than her fingers; and her tiny feet were a joy to the sight. And there she lay, rolling at my feet, and looking up archly, and laughing—for she knew what was to come next; so I put out my hand, and commenced the daily lesson, counting upon the digits. “_Un_, _deux_, _trois_, _quatre_, _cinq_.” I had undertaken to teach Paqueta to count five—and a mighty task it was; for she was a very little witch, and knew me better than I knew myself, and feared lest, the lesson ended, she might lose her interest to be whistled down the wind. Oh, nature, nature! thou knowest full well what thou art about; and dost put into our breasts, even in the beginning, the ways and means of winning all our desires.