a church rose dominantly above the red roofs, a fort guarded the
entrance of the wide harbour, with guns thrusting their muzzles
between the crenels, and the wide facade of Government House
revealed itself dominantly placed on a gentle hill above the town.
This hill was vividly green as is an English hill in April, and the
day was such a day as April gives to England, the season of heavy
rains being newly ended.

On a wide cobbled space on the sea front they found a guard of
red-coated militia drawn up to receive them, and a crowd - attracted
by their arrival - which in dress and manner differed little from a
crowd in a seaport at home save that it contained fewer women and a
great number of negroes.

To inspect them, drawn up there on the mole, came Governor Steed,
a short, stout, red-faced gentleman, in blue taffetas burdened by
a prodigious amount of gold lace, who limped a little and leaned
heavily upon a stout ebony cane. After him, in the uniform of a
colonel of the Barbados Militia, rolled a tall, corpulent man who
towered head and shoulders above the Governor, with malevolence
plainly written on his enormous yellowish countenance. At his side,
and contrasting oddly with his grossness, moving with an easy
stripling grace, came a slight young lady in a modish riding-gown.
The broad brim of a grey hat with scarlet sweep of ostrich plume
shaded an oval face upon which the climate of the Tropic of Cancer
had made no impression, so delicately fair was its complexion.
Ringlets of red-brown hair hung to her shoulders. Frankness looked
out from her hazel eyes which were set wide; commiseration repressed
now the mischievousness that normally inhabited her fresh young
mouth.