She told Don Juan that she was an orphan, homeless, penniless, and friendless, glad to leave the shores of her sunny France for the chances of finding better fortune in the New World. "And I have found better fortune," she would say, lifting her expressive eyes to the dark face of her haughty employer; "for where could I have hoped to meet a nobler patron, or to find dearer friends or a happier home than I have here. Ah, bless you, noble Spaniard, for your goodness to the helpless stranger." It was in the summer that Pauline Corsi first came to Villa Moraquitos, and it was in the winter of the same year that Don Tomaso Crivelli expired in the arms of his brother-in-law. We must request the reader to bear this in mind, for on the truth of certain dates hangs much of the tale of mystery and crime which we are about to reveal. The gossips of New Orleans were ready to insinuate that the Spaniard's heart would surely be in a little danger from the presence of so young and lovely a woman as the French governess, but they soon grew tired of whispering this, for it was speedily perceived by all who knew Don Juan Moraquitos that his heart was buried in the mausoleum of his fair young wife, Olympia, and that all the love of which his proud nature was capable of was lavished on his only child. Some girls in the position of Pauline Corsi might have nourished ambitious hopes, and might have angled for the heart and hand of the wealthy Spaniard; but it was impossible to suspect the light-hearted and frivolous young Frenchwoman of the mean vices of the schemer. She was a thing of sunshine and gladness--gay and heedless as the birds she tended in her chamber, careless of the morrow as the flower that perfumed her balcony. So thought all who knew Pauline Corsi. Did any of them know her rightly? The hideous skeleton, Time, whose bony hand lifts, inch by inch and day by day, the dark and pall-like curtain that hangs before the vast stage of the future, can alone answer this question. Camillia Moraquitos was much attached to her old governess. All her varied accomplishments she owed to Mademoiselle Corsi; and, far too generous and high-minded to consider the handsome salary paid to the Frenchwoman a sufficient recompense for her services, she looked upon Pauline's devotion to her as an obligation which could only be paid by gratitude and affection. The young heiress had often endeavored to bestow some handsome present upon her instructress (a valuable article of jewelry--a ring, a chain, a bracelet), but always to be firmly, though kindly repulsed. "No, Camillia," Mademoiselle Corsi would reply, "I will take no gift from you but affection--that is a priceless treasure. Bestow that upon me, and you would amply reward me for a lifetime of devotion; the brief years I have given to your instruction have been more than repaid by my pupil's love."