He only met her twice after that before his return to Mount Pleasant,
and on the first occasion that odious soldier was not there. But a
specially devout young clergyman was present, an unmarried,
evangelical, handsome young curate fresh from England; and Marian's
piety had been so excited that she had cared for no one else. It
appeared moreover that the curate's gifts for conversion were
confined, as regarded that opportunity, to Marion's advantage. "I
will have nothing more to say to her," said Maurice to himself,
scowling. But just as he went away Marian had given him her hand,
and called him Maurice--for she pretended that they were cousins--and
had looked into his eyes and declared that she did hope that the
assembly at Spanish Town would soon be sitting again. 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