"Really, Nat?" his mother said in a tone of doubt; "do you actually mean that you have become engaged to a young lady who is now at Yeovil?"
"That is the case, mother," he said cheerfully. "There is nothing very surprising that a young lady should fall in love with me, is there? and I think the announcement will look well in the papers—on such and such a date, Myra, daughter of Monsieur Duchesne, late of the island of Hayti, to Nathaniel, son of the Rev. Charles Glover of Arkton Rectory, commander in his majesty's navy."
"Duchesne!" Ada, the second girl, said, clapping her hands, "that is the name of the young lady you rescued from a dog. I remember at the time Mary and I quite agreed that the proper thing for you to do would be to marry her some day. Yes, and you were staying at her father's place when the blacks broke out; and you had all to hide in the woods for some time."
"Quite right, Ada. Well, she and her father and mother have posted down with me from Southampton in order to make your acquaintance, and to-morrow you will have to go over in a body."
"Does she speak English?" Mrs. Glover asked.
"Oh, yes, she speaks a good deal of English; her people have for the past two years intended to settle in England, and have all been studying the language to a certain extent. Besides that, they have had the inestimable advantage of my conversation, and have read a great many English books on their voyage home."
"Is Miss Duchesne very dark?" Lucy asked in a tone of anxiety.
Nat looked at her for a moment in surprise, and then burst into a fit of laughter.
"What, Lucy, do you think because Myra was born in Hayti that she is a little negress with crinkley wool?"
"No, no," the girl protested almost tearfully. "Of course I did not think that, but I thought that she might be dark. I am sure when I was at Bath last season and saw several old gentlemen, who, they said, were rich West Indians, they were all as yellow as guineas."