wholesome dread of his Quadroon wife, and so completely did he identify himself with the new character he had assumed, that even Célandine could hardly believe her present husband was the same Stefano Bartoletti who had wooed her unsuccessfully in her girlhood, had met her again under such strange circumstances in France, eventually to follow her fortunes, and those of her mistress, the Marquise, and obtain from the latter the supervision of her negroes on the estate she had inherited by her mother's will, which she chose to call Montmirail West.
Bartoletti had intended to settle down for the rest of his life in a state of dignified indolence with Célandine. He had even offered to purchase the Quadroon's freedom, which was generously given to her by the Marquise with that view; but he had accustomed himself through the whole of his early life to the engrossing occupation of money-*making, and like many others he found it impossible to leave off. He and his wife now devoted themselves entirely to the acquisition of wealth; she with the object of discovering her long-lost son, he, partly from inborn covetousness, and yet more from force of habit. Quick, shrewd, and indeed enterprising, where there was no personal risk, he had been but a short time in the service of the Marquise ere he became an excellent overseer, by no means neglecting her interests, while he was scrupulously attentive to his own. The large dealings in human merchandise which now occupied his attention afforded scope for his peculiar qualities, and Signor Bartoletti found few competitors in the slave-market who, in caution, cupidity, and knowledge of business, could pretend to be his equals. Moreover, he dearly loved the constant speculation, amounting to actual gambling, inseparable from such transactions, nor was he averse, besides, to that pleasing sensation of superiority experienced by all but the noblest natures from absolute authority, however unjustifiable, over their fellow-creatures.
The Signor was a great man in the plantation, a great man in Port Welcome, a great man on the deck of a trader just arrived with her swarthy cargo from the Bight of Benin or the Gold Coast; but his proportions seemed to shrink and his step to falter when he crossed the threshold of his own home. The older negroes, who knew he had married an
