“Nay,” said Nina, still holding her guitar, and sitting down on the bank near him; “you know that I am only obeying papa’s orders in watching you; for he says you would not give your parole, and I am sure you were thinking of your escape from Guadaloupe.”
“Perhaps you might have guessed more wide of the mark, Mademoiselle Nina,” said Ethelston.
“And are you then so very anxious to—to—see your home again?” inquired Nina, hesitating.
“Judge for yourself, Nina,” he replied, “when I remind you that for many months I have heard nothing of those who have been my nearest and dearest friends from childhood; nothing of the brave men who were captured with me when our poor brig was lost!”
“Tell me about your friends and your home. Is it very beautiful? Have you the warm sun, and the fresh sea–breeze, and the orange–flowers, that we have here?”
“Scarcely,” replied Ethelston, smiling at the earnest rapidity with which the beautiful girl based her inquiries on the scene before her; “but we have in their place rivers, on the bosom of which your father’s frigate might sail; groves and woods of deep shade, impenetrable to the rays of the hottest sun; and prairies smiling with the most brilliant and variegated flowers.”
“Oh! how I should love to see that land!” exclaimed Nina, her fervid imagination instantly grasping and heightening its beauties. “How I should love to dwell there!”
“Nay, it appears to me not unlikely that you should at some time visit it,” replied Ethelston. “This foolish war between our countries will soon be over, and your father may wish to see a region the scenery of which is so magnificent, and which is not difficult of access from here.”
“Papa will never leave these islands, unless he goes to France, and that he hates,” said Nina.
“Well then,” continued Ethelston, smiling, as he alluded for the first time to her marriage, “you must defer your American trip a year or two longer; then, doubtless, Monsieur Bertrand will gladly gratify your desire to see the Mississippi.”