“We must part, my child!” murmured Zulima, turning pale as the woman caught sight of her charge from a tomb which she had mounted to command a view of the grounds, and with a degree of self-command that was wonderful even to herself, she arose and led the little girl forward. “Oh, Miss Myra, Miss Myra!” cried the negress, snatching up the little girl and kissing her with a degree of eagerness that made poor Zulima shudder; “what should I have done if you had been lost in earnest?” Myra struggled to get away, and held out her arms to Zulima. How pale the poor mother was! Her eyes sparkled though at this proof of fondness in the child, and taking her from the woman, she kissed her forehead, and leading her a little way off, bent down with a hand upon those bright ringlets, and called down a blessing from God upon her daughter. Ah! these blessings, what holy things they are! The sunshine they pour forth, how certain it is to flow back to the source and fill it with brightness! If “curses are like chickens that always come home to roost,” are not blessings like the ringdoves that coo most tenderly in the nest that shelters their birth? For many a day, while tossed upon the waters, Zulima was the happier for having seen and blessed her child. CHAPTER III. Oh, she was like a fawn, chased to the plain, Half blind with grief and mad with sudden pain That plunges wildly in its first despair, To any copse that offers shelter there.