children danced, or ran madly round and round its base. Everyone had changed his, or her, seaside garb for more fashionable array--even the children were robed in white frocks and gala hats--and the whole scene was gay and festive. Harriet Brandt ran from one side to the other of the Digue, as though she also had been a child. Everything she saw seemed to astonish and delight her. First, she was gazing out over the calm and placid water--and next, she was exclaiming at the bits of rubbish in the shape of embroidered baskets, or painted shells, exhibited in the shop windows, which were side by side with the private houses and hotels, forming a long line of buildings fronting the water.

She kept on declaring that she wanted to buy that or this, and lamenting she had not brought more money with her.

“You will have plenty of opportunities to select and purchase what you want to-morrow,” said Mrs. Pullen, “and you will be better able to judge what they are like. They look better under the gas than they do by daylight, I can assure you, Miss Brandt!”"O! but they are lovely--delightful!” replied the girl, enthusiastically, “I never saw anything so pretty before! Do look at that little doll in a bathing costume, with her cap in one hand, her sponge in the other! She is charming--unique! _Tout ce qu’il y a de plus beau!_” She spoke French perfectly, and when she spoke English, it was with a slightly foreign accent, that greatly enhanced its charm. It made Mrs. Pullen observe:

“You are more used to speaking French than English, Miss Brandt!”
“Yes! We always spoke French in the Convent, and it is in general use in the Island. But I thought--I hoped--that I spoke English like an Englishwoman! I _am_ an Englishwoman, you know!”
“Are you? I was not quite sure! Brandt sounds rather German!”
“No! my father was English, his name was Henry Brandt, and my mother was a Miss Carey--daughter of one of the Justices of Barbadoes!”
“O! indeed!” replied Mrs. Pullen. She did not know what else to say. The subject was of no interest to her! At that moment they encountered the nurse and perambulator, and she naturally stopped to speak to her baby.

The sight of the infant seemed to drive Miss Brandt wild.

“O! is that your baby, Mrs. Pullen, is that really your baby?” she exclaimed excitedly, “you never told me you had one. O! the darling! the sweet dear little angel! I love little white babies! I adore them. They are so sweet and fresh and clean--so different from the little niggers who smell so nasty, you can’t touch them! We never saw a baby in the Convent, and so few English 

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