'I am sure she is really ill,' thought Mavis, as she afterwards watched Mrs. Wynn dozing in her chair, with the faint smile that she had succeeded in calling to her weary face still resting upon it in her light slumber. 'I must ask Jack what I ought to do.'

Again Mavis Wynn knelt in the moonlight by her little white bed, and hid her face in her hands; but the thoughts that came thronging to her then were full of amazement that it had been possible for her to be so miserable, when such happiness as was now hers had all the time been so near. It was almost frightening to think of that; it taught her practically the hard lesson of our mysterious ignorance; for might she not, at her happiest moment, when Jack should be with her, and she most sure that he loved her, be parted from new sorrow only by an interval as brief?

This cloud passed quickly, like the thin rapid vapours that were flitting across the silvery moon, and the girl's pure heart gave itself over to the security and innocent triumph of her love. Mavis was of a faithful and a grateful nature; her dead were not buried out of her sight-never had the dear friends to whom she owed even Jack-because, little as there was in her to justify his love, she owed to them that there was anything-been remembered with more poignant tenderness. Ah, if they could have known! if they could only have been spared apprehension and anxiety, such as had troubled the closing days of both her aunt and uncle, with what additional radiance would the bliss that was now hers have been invested!

While these and myriads of other thoughts were crowding upon Mavis, there was not one that did not centre in her lover himself. It was because Jack was Jack, and loved her, that the dear ones who were gone would have rejoiced for her. That the lover whose faith had just been plighted to her was the only son of her father's landlord, a gentleman of position and fortune, one entitled by the world's laws to mate far above her, did not at first enter into Mavis's mind. Her humility was unaffected, but it was altogether personal; only Jack and herself were present to her guileless and inexperienced thoughts. Only the dread of parting, more imminent and definite than when it had shaken her like the wind last night, broke up the lustrous serenity of the mirror into which she gazed, seeing those two images. Even that dread had been deprived of half its pain: for now, although, indeed, Jack would have to go away, they could not be parted in reality; and when he came back, it would be to her.

VOL. LIII. NO, CCIX.

(To be continued.)

34

Carvalho.

I.

THE first time I ever met Ernest Carvalho was just before the regimental dance at Newcastle. I had ridden up the Port Royal mountains that same morning from our decaying sugar estate in the Liguanea plain, and I was to stop in cantonments with the Major's wife, fat little Mrs. Venn, who had promised my mother that she would undertake to chaperon me to this my earliest military party. I won't deny that I looked forward to it immensely, for I was then a girl of only eighteen, fresh out from school in England, where I had been living away from our family ever since I was twelve years old. Dear mamma was a Jamaican lady of the old school, completely overpowered by the ingrained West Indian indolence; and if I had waited to go to a dance till I could get her to accompany me, I might have waited till Doomsday, or probably later. So I was glad enough to accept fat little Mrs. Venn's proffered protection, and to go up the hills on my sure-footed mountain pony; while Isaac, the black stable-boy, ran up behind me carrying on his thick head the small portmanteau that contained my plain white ball-dress.

As I went up the steep mountain-path alone, for ladies ride only with such an unmounted domestic escort in Jamaica, I happened to overtake a tall gentleman with a handsome rather Jewish face and a pair of extremely lustrous black eyes, who was mounted on a beautiful chestnut mare just in front of me. The horse-paths in the Port Royal mountains are very narrow, being mere zigzag ledges cut half-way up the precipitous green slopes of fern and club-moss, so that there is seldom room for two horses to pass abreast, and it is necessary to wait at some convenient corner whenever you see another rider coming in the opposite direction. At the first opportunity the tall Jewish-looking gentleman drew aside in such a corner, and waited for me to pass. Pray don't wait,' I said, as soon as I saw what he meant; 'your horse will get up faster than my pony, and if I go in front I shall keep you back unnecessarily.'

'Not at all,' he answered, raising his hat gracefully; 'you are a stranger in the hills, I see. It is the rule of these mountainpaths always to give a lady the lead, If I go first and my mare

breaks into a canter on a bit of level, your pony will try to catch her up on the steep slopes, and that is always dangerous.'

Seeing he did not intend to move till I did, I waived the point at last and took the lead. From that moment I don't know what on earth came over my lazy old pony. He refused to go at more than a walk, or at best a jog-trot, the whole way to Newcastle. Now the rise from the plain to the cantonments is about four thousand feet, I think (I am a dreadfully bad hand at remembering figures), and the distance can't be much less, I suppose, than seven miles. During all that time you never see a soul, except a few negro pickaninnies playing in the dustheaps, not a human habitation, except a few huts embowered in mangoes, hibiscusbushes, and tree-ferns. At first we kept a decorous silence, not having been introduced to one another; but the stranger's mare followed close at my pony's heels, pull her in as he would, and it seemed really too ridiculous to be solemnly pacing after one another, single file, in this way for a couple of hours, without speaking a word, out of pure punctiliousness. So at last we broke the ice, and long before we got to Newcastle we had struck up quite an acquaintance with one another. It is wonderful how well two people can get mutually known in the course of two hours' tête-à-tête, especially under such peculiar circumstances. You are just near enough to one another for friendly chat, and yet not too near for casual strangers. And then Isaac with the portmanteau behind was quite sufficient escort to satisfy the convenances. In England, one's groom would have to be mounted, which always seems to me, in my simplicity, a distinction without a difference.

Mr. Carvalho was on his way up to Newcastle on the same errand as myself, to go to the dance. He might have been twenty, I suppose; and, to a girl of eighteen, boys of twenty seem quite men already. He was a clerk in a Government Office in Kingston, and was going to stop with a sub at Newcastle for a week or two, on leave. I did not know much about men in those days, but I needed little knowledge of the subject to tell me that Ernest Carvalho was decidedly clever. As soon as the first chill wore off our conversation, he kept me amused the whole way by his bright sketchy talk about the petty dignitaries of a colonial capital. There was his Excellency for the time being, and there was the Right Reverend of that day, and there was the Honourable Colonial Secretary, and there was the Honourable Director of Roads, and there were a number of other assorted Honourables, whose queer little peculiarities he hit off dexterously in the quaintest manner. Not that there was any unkindly satire in his brilliant conversation; on the contrary, he evidently liked most of

the men he talked about, and seemed only to read and realise their characters so thoroughly that they spoke for themselves in his dramatic anecdotes. He appeared to me a more genial copy of Thackeray in a colonial society, with all the sting gone, and only the skilful delineation of men and women left. I had never met anybody before, and I have never met anybody since, who struck me so instantaneously with the idea of innate genius as Ernest Carvalho.

"You have been in England, of course,' I said, as we were nearing Newcastle.

No, never,' he answered; I am a Jamaican born and bred, I have never been out of the island.'

I was surprised, for he seemed so different from any of the young planters I had met at our house, most of whom had never opened a book, apparently, in the course of their lives, while Mr. Carvalho's talk was full of indefinite literary flavour. Where were you educated, then?' I asked.

'I never was educated anywhere,' he answered, laughing. ‘I went to a small school at Port Antonio during my father's life, but for the most part I have picked up whatever I know (and that's not much) wholly by myself. Of course French, like reading and writing, comes by nature, and I got enough Spanish to dip into Cervantes from the Cuban refugees. Latin one has to grind up out of books, naturally; and as for Greek, I'm sorry to say I know very little, though, of course, I can spell out Homer a bit, and even Eschylus. But my hobby is natural science, and there a fellow has to make his own way here, for hardly anything has been done at the beasts and the flowers in the West Indies yet. But if I live, I mean to work them up in time, and I've made a fair beginning already.'

This reasonable list of accomplishments, given modestly, not boastfully, by a young man of twenty, wholly self-taught, fairly took my breath away. I was inspired at once with a secret admiration for Mr. Carvalho. He was so handsome and so clever that I think I was half-inclined to fall in love with him at first sight. To say the truth, I believe almost all love is love at first sight; and for my own part, I wouldn't give you a thank-you for any other kind.

6

'Here we must part,' he said, as we reached a fork in the narrow path just outside the steep hog's back on which Newcastle stands, unless you will allow me to see you safely as far as Mrs. Venn's. The path to the right leads to the Major's quarters; this on the left takes me to my friend Cameron's hut. May I see you to the Major's door?'

'No, thank you,' I answered decidedly; Isaac is escort enough. We shall meet again this evening.'

'Perhaps then,' he suggested, 'I may have the pleasure of a dance with you. Of course it's quite irregular of me to ask you now, but we shall be formally introduced no doubt to-night, and I'm afraid if you lunch at the Venns' your card will be filled up by the 99th men before I can edge myself in anywhere for a dance. Will you allow me?'

Certainly,' I said; 'what shall it be? The first waltz?'

You

'You are very kind,' he answered, taking out a pencil. know my name-Carvalho; what may I put down for yours? I haven't heard it yet.'

6

6

Mr. Carvalho gave a little start of surprise. Miss Hazleden of Palmettos,' he said half to himself, with a rather pained expression. Miss Hazleden! Then, perhaps, I'd better-well, why not? why not, indeed? Palmettos-Yes, I will.' Turning to me, he said, louder, Thank you; till this evening, then ;' and, raising his hat, he hurried sharply round the corner of the hill.

What was there in my name, I wondered, which made him so evidently hesitate and falter?

Fat little Mrs. Venn was very kind, and not a very strict chaperon, but I judged it best not to mention to her this romantic episode of the handsome stranger. However, during the course of lunch, I ventured casually to ask her husband whether he knew of any family in Jamaica of the name of Carvalho.

'Carvalho,' answered the Major, bless my soul, yes. Old settled family in the island; Jews; live down Savannah-la-Mar way; been here ever since the Spanish time; doocid clever fellows, too, and rich, most of them.'

'Jews,' I thought; 'ah, yes, Mr. Carvalho had a very handsome Jewish type of face and dark eyes; but, why, yes, surely I heard him speak several times of having been to church, and once of the Cathedral at Spanish Town. This was curious.'

'Are any of them Christians?' I asked again.

6

'Not a man,' answered the Major; not a man, my dear. Good old Jewish family; Jews in Jamaica never turn Christians; nothing to gain by it.'

The dance took place in the big mess-room, looking out on the fan-palms and tree-ferns of the regimental garden. It was a lovely tropical night, moonlight of course, for all Jamaican entertainments are given at full moon, so as to let the people who ride from a distance get to and fro safely over the breakneck mountain horse-paths. The windows, which open down to the ground, were