its undulating, stately grace. Her hair, dazzlingly white, was piled
high above her ample brow, held in place with jewelled combs and
glittering pins. Her face had lost its fine oval and youthful freshness,
but who of any feeling or intelligence would not have far preferred the
worn countenance, expressing in a thousand sensitive shades and emotions
the story of her life and love? And if every other beauty had failed,
Angelica's eyes would have atoned for the loss. They were large, softly-
black, slow-moving, or again, in a moment, flashing with the fire that
lay hidden in the dark pit of the iris.

It was said that her slaves adored her, and that no man who came within
her influence had been able to resist her power--no man, perhaps, but
Captain Jacobus; and he had not resisted, he had been content to
exercise over her a power greater than her own. He had made her his
wife; he had lavished on her for ten years the spoils of the four
quarters of the world; and his worship of her had only been equalled by
her passionate attachment to him. Ten years of love, and then parting
and silence--unbroken silence. Yet she still insisted that he was alive,
and would certainly come back to her. With this faith in her heart, she
had refused to put on any symbol of loss or mourning. She kept his fine
house open, his room ready, and herself constantly adorned for his home-
coming. Society, which insists on uniformity, did not approve of this
unreasonable hope. It expected her to adopt the garments of widowhood
for a time, and then make a match in accordance with the great fortune
Captain Jacobus had left her. But Angelica Jacobus was a law unto
herself; and society was compelled to take her with those apologizing
shrugs it gives to whatever is original and individual.

She came in with a smile of welcome. She was always pleased that her
fine home should be seen by those strange to it; and perhaps was