He told her about his intentions, which made her dance with joy. Besides, she had a little money, left her by a female oyster-dealer, who had picked her up when she had been left on the quay at Havre by an American captain. This captain had found her, when she was only about six years old, lying on bales of cotton in the hold of his ship, some hours after his departure from New York. On his arrival in Havre, he there abandoned to the care of this compassionate oyster-dealer the little black creature, who had been hidden on board his vessel, he could not tell how or why. The oyster-woman having died, the young negress became a servant at the Colonial tavern. Antoine Boitelle added: "This will be all right if the parents don't go against it. I will never go against them, you understand never! I'm going to say a word or two to them the first time I go back to the country." On the following week, in fact, having obtained twenty-four hours' leave, he went to see his family, who cultivate a little farm at Tourteville near Yvetot. He waited till the meal was finished, the hour when the coffee baptized with brandy makes people more open-hearted, before informing his parents that he had found a girl answering so well to his likings in every way that there could not exist any other in all the world so perfectly suited to him. The old people, at this observation, immediately assumed a circumspect air, and wanted explanations. Besides he had concealed nothing from them except the color of her skin. She was a servant, without much means, but strong, thrifty, clean, well-conducted, and sensible. All these things were better than money would be in the hands of a bad housewife. Moreover, she had a few sous, left her by a woman who had reared her, a good number of sous, almost a little dowry, fifteen hundred francs in the savings' bank. The old people, overcome by his talk, and relying, too, on their own judgment, were gradually giving way, when he came to the delicate point. Laughing in rather a constrained fashion, he said: "There is only one thing you may not like. She is not a white slip." They did not understand, and he had to explain at some length and very cautiously, to avoid shocking them, that she belonged to the dusky race of which they had only seen samples amongst figures exhibited at Epinal. Then, they became restless, perplexed, alarmed, as if he had proposed a union with the Devil. The mother said. "Black? How much of her is black? Is the whole of her?" He replied, "Certainly. Everywhere, just as you are white everywhere." The father interposed, "Black? Is it as black as the pot?" The son answered "Perhaps a little less than that. She is black, but not disgustingly black. The Cure's cassock is black; but it is not uglier than a surplice, which is white." The father said, "Are there more black people besides her in her country?" And the son, with an air of conviction, exclaimed, "Certainly!" But the old man shook his head.