Hitherto, she
said, she had not cared one straw about it. Then poor Maurice
pressed the little fingers which lay within his own, and swore that
he would be at Shandy Hall on the day before his return to Mount
Pleasant. So he was; and there he found the narrow-waisted
lieutenant, not now bedecked with sash and epaulettes, but lolling at
his ease on Mrs. Leslie's sofa in a white jacket, while Marian sat at
his feet telling his fortune with a book about flowers.
"Oh, a musk rose, Mr. Ewing; you know what a musk rose means!" Then
she got up and shook hands with Mr. Cumming; but her eyes still went
away to the white jacket and the sofa. Poor Maurice had often been
nearly broken-hearted in his efforts to manage his free black
labourers; but even that was easier than managing such as Marion
Leslie.
Marian Leslie was a Creole--as also were Miss Jack and Maurice
Cumming--a child of the tropics; but by no means such a child as
tropical children are generally thought to be by us in more northern
latitudes. She was black-haired and black-eyed, but her lips were as
red and her cheeks as rosy as though she had been born and bred in
regions where the snow lies in winter.
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