pleasure from his thoughts. But not the less was he in love with
her;--not the less, though he would swear to himself three times in
the day that for no earthly consideration would he marry Marian
Leslie.

The early months of the year from January to May are the busiest with
a Jamaica sugar-grower, and in this year they were very busy months
with Maurice Cumming. It seemed as though there were actually some
truth in Miss Jack's prediction that prosperity would return to him
if he attended to his country; for the prices of sugar had risen
higher than they had ever been since the duty had been withdrawn, and
there was more promise of a crop at Mount Pleasant than he had seen
since his reign commenced. But then the question of labour? How he
slaved in trying to get work from those free negroes; and alas! how
often he slaved in vain! But it was not all in vain; for as things
went on it became clear to him that in this year he would, for the
first time since he commenced, obtain something like a return from
his land. What if the turning-point had come, and things were now
about to run the other way.

But then the happiness which might have accrued to him from this
source was dashed by his thoughts of Marian Leslie. Why had he
thrown himself in the way of that syren? Why had he left Mount
Pleasant at all? He knew that on his return to Spanish Town his
first work would be to visit Shandy Hall; and yet he felt that of all
places in the island, Shandy Hall was the last which he ought to
visit.

And then about the beginning of May, when he was hard at work turning
the last of his canes into sugar and rum, he received his annual