Point. Occasional swarthy visitors,--men of the Manilla
settlements,--she spoke of contemptuously as negues-marrons; and
once she shocked Carmen inexpressibly by stopping in the middle
of her evening prayer, declaring that she wanted to say her
prayers to a white Virgin; Carmen's Senora de Guadalupe was only
a negra! Then, for the first time, Carmen spoke so crossly to
the child as to frighten her. But the pious woman's heart smote
her the next moment for that first harsh word;--and she caressed
the motherless one, consoled her, cheered her, and at last
explained to her--I know not how--something very wonderful about
the little figurine, something that made Chita's eyes big with
awe. Thereafter she always regarded the Virgin of Wax as an
object mysterious and holy.

And, one by one, most of Chita's little eccentricities were
gradually eliminated from her developing life and thought. More
rapidly than ordinary children, because singularly intelligent,
she learned to adapt herself to all the changes of her new
environment,--retaining only that indescribable something which
to an experienced eye tells of hereditary refinement of habit and
of mind:--a natural grace, a thorough-bred ease and elegance of
movement, a quickness and delicacy of perception.

She became strong again and active--active enough to play a great
deal on the beach, when the sun was not too fierce; and Carmen
made a canvas bonnet to shield her head and face. Never had she
been allowed to play so much in the sun before; and it seemed to
do her good, though her little bare feet and hands became brown
as copper. At first, it must be confessed, she worried her
foster-mother a great deal by various queer misfortunes and