It would have required an experienced eye—one well acquainted with the physiological characteristics of race—to have told that that young girl was not of the purest Caucasian blood. And yet the slight undulation of the hair; a rotund rather than an oval face; eyes of darkest umber, with a light gleaming perpetually in the pupils; a singular picturelike expression in the colouring of the cheeks—were all characteristics, that proclaimed the presence of the sang-mêlée.
Slight indeed was the taint; and it seems like profanation to employ the phrase, when speaking of a creature so beautifully fair—for beautifully fair was the daughter of Loftus Vaughan. She was his only daughter—the only member of his family: for the proprietor of Mount Welcome was a widower.
On entering the hall, the young girl did not proceed directly to seat herself; but, gliding behind the chair occupied by her father, she flung her arms around his neck, and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead.
It was her usual matutinal salute; and proved that, on that morning they had met for the first time.
Not that it was the first appearance of either: for both had been much earlier abroad—up with the sun, indeed, as is the universal custom in Jamaica.
Mr Vaughan had entered the hall from the front door, and the broad-brimmed Leghorn hat, and cane carried in his hand, told that he had been out for a walk—perhaps to inspect the labour going on at the “works,” or ascertain the progress made in the cultivation of his extensive cane-fields.
His daughter, on the contrary, might have been seen entering the house some half-hour before, in riding costume—hat, habit, and whip—proving that her morning exercise had been taken on horseback.
After saluting her father as described, the young girl took her seat in front of the coffee urn, and commenced performing the duties of the table.
In this she was assisted by a girl apparently of her own age, but of widely-different appearance. Her waiting-maid it was, who, having entered at the same time, had taken her station behind the chair of her mistress.
There was something strikingly peculiar in the aspect of this personage—as well in her figure as in the colour of her skin. She was of that slender classic shape which we find in antique sculptures—like the forms of the Hindoo women known in England as “ayahs” and differing altogether from the negro outline. Her complexion, too, was not that of a negress—still less of a mulatta or quadroon. It was an admixture of black and red, resulting in a chestnut or mahogany colour; which, with the deep damask tincture upon her cheeks, produced an impression not unpleasing.