CHAPTER XXXI
BLACK, BUT COMELY
Transplanted, like some delicate flower from her native
soil, to this glowing West Indian Island, Mademoiselle de
Montmirail had lost but little of the freshness that bloomed
in the Norman convent, and had gained a more decided
colouring and a deeper expression, which added the one
womanly grace hitherto wanting in her beauty. Even the
negoes, chattering to one another as they hoed between the
cane-rows, grinned out their approval of her beauty, and
Hippolyte, a gigantic and hideous Coromantee, imported
from Africa, had been good enough to express his opinion
that she only wanted a little more colour, as he called it,
meaning a shade of yellow in her skin, to be handsome
enough for his wife; whereat his audience shouted and
showed their white teeth, wagging their woolly heads
applauding, while the savage shook his great black
shoulders, and looked as if he thought more unlikely events
might come to pass.
Had it not been for these very slaves, who gave their opinions so freely on her personal appearance, Cerise would have been tolerably happy. She was, indeed, far from the scenes that were most endeared to her by memory and association. She was very uncertain when or how she should return to France, and until she returned, there was apparently no hope, however remote, that she could realise a certain dream which now constituted the charm of her whole life. Still the dream had been dreamed, vague, romantic, wild, and visionary; yet the girl dwelt upon it day by day, with a tenderness and a constancy the deeper
