An old female slave whispered strange stories of the past.
For six years the father scarce noticed the babe, who reminded him of his wife.
He had a small estate on the banks of the Mississippi. It was a little paradise.
Here, under care of two women, the infant was placed. The slave Pepita, who had nursed Olympia, the mother of Camillia, in her childhood, and had attained her in her death hour; and another female slave called Zarah, a woman whose husband had been sold to a merchant of Florida, but who had been allowed to keep her son with her. He was an active negro boy of about six years old. These two women, with a couple of stout negro slaves, who worked in the gardens, composed the entire establishment of the baby heiress.
Time passed; the rosy lips began to form half-inarticulate murmurs, then gentle and loving words. The baby learned to speak her nurse's name, to prattle with the negro lad—Zarah's son.
Pepita, the infant's foster-mother, loved the child with devotion.
Zarah attended to the household work and waited on the nurse and her foster-child.
As the baby, Camillia, grew into a laughing girl, the young negro loved to amuse the little heiress by indulging in all kinds of rough and impish gambols for her gratification.
Pepita often let Tristan, the negro boy, to watch the slumbering child. It was six years after the death of Olympia when the stern father's heart first relented to his orphan child.
He would see her!