“‘Your heart’s your own this summer day;
To-morrow ’twill be changed away.’
“And Aimée—is she married?”
“Aimée is a widow—at least, so we call her,” said her mother, smiling. “Isaac (you remember Placide and Isaac)—her brother Isaac is all the world to her; and he is far away.”
Aimée’s eyes were full of tears in a moment; but she looked happy, as she always did when Isaac was spoken of as her own peculiar friend.
“I was going to ask about your boys,” said Bayou. “The little fellow who used to ride the horses to water, almost before he could walk alone—he and his brothers, where are they?”
“Denis is with his tutor, in the palace here. Placide and Isaac are at Paris.”
“At Paris! For education?”
“Partly so.”
“And partly,” interposed Paul, “for an object in which you, sir, have an interest, and respecting which you ought, therefore, to be informed. There are those who represent my brother’s actions as the result of personal ambition. Such persons have perpetually accused him to the French Government as desiring to sever the connection between the two races, and therefore between this colony and France. At the moment when these charges were most strongly urged, and most nearly believed, my brother sent his two elder sons to Paris, to be educated for their future duties under the care of the Directory. I hope, sir, you see in this act a guarantee for the safety and honour of the whites in Saint Domingo.”
“Certainly, certainly. All very right—very satisfactory.”