WEST INDIAN SOCIETY. 139 



Then my diet was regulated ; I eschewed congo-pease, and ate 

 chicken fed on cockroaches: I had too, like the Blunderhead family, 

 the best advice and frequent consultations swallowing doctors stuff, 

 a whole series of prescriptions, now consecutively, now again in a 

 round robin, I have done every thing, in short, but exhaust the patience 

 of my sweet nurse; whose story by the bye has been promised you. 



And what if there were no " bodies of light " shining for me over 

 the Atlantic ? 



Well, well, but for the ravages of our sad climate, my pretty Creole 

 girl were a bride long ago. Frances' betrothed had been chosen from 

 a more worldly calling at home to expound Wesley's tenets among 

 us ; and some how found his aspirations after heaven insensibly 

 mingle with others towards this fair devotee. He died suddenly, 

 even after her wedding garment had been prepared. 



They hold a canon over bachelor itinerants that is almost 

 popish. That is, no allowance issues for adscititious sisters ; and 

 these good men not being wontedly seized of lay income, a 

 fiat for their support must come out before they can well put off 

 celibacy. Now the time that, in such case, elapses before as the 

 license runs " your desires may the more speedily obtain a good 

 effect ;" is shocking enough, and yet by no means the worst of it. 

 Only so many couples are allowed at each station, and thus love has 

 to wait in tedious obeyance until some, for them, benign influence 

 creates a vacancy. Jabez Bunting should look to this affair. 



In my notice of our party colored retainers, Miss Frances' abigail, 

 and our groom were omitted. The first is a Meeytise girl of some 

 twenty summers, whose fine grown figure, and handsome counte- 

 nance although it is spotted with that leprosy of the tropics, ele- 

 phantiasis, strangely contrast with the child's tone in which she 

 utters her broken dialect. Jane's ordinary dress is the coarse gown 

 in which our women of colour wrap themselves up, like so many 

 nuns ; even their gayer attire is made in the same bad taste, and of 

 white, the only hue unsuited to their complexions. At St. Thomas 

 these females assume all the flauntings that become them. However 

 she almost rivals her young mistress in patisserie, their mutual knack 

 that way serving to confirm a tale of more solito affinities : but never 

 mind, people should look to their own morality. Jane brought me 

 one day a billet-doux, stolen by her from our house maid ; this 

 dark wench had fallen asleep while engaged in cleaning some articles 

 of plate, and the letter, that some clever urchin had been reading for 

 her, lay among them. It is from a black operative now at Saint 

 Thomas. 



