MYSTIC ISLES 391 



back nex' week. One ol' T'ytee woman she work for 

 her to keep all chil'ren clean, an' eat, an' she notice two 

 day ago one mornin' she more thin. She ask her, 

 'Where that babee?' She say the varua, a bad devil, 

 take it. The ol' woman remember she hear little cry in 

 night, an' when a girl live my hotel tell her she saw Pepe 

 diggin' in garden, she talk and talk, an' by 'n' by police 

 come, an' fin' babee under rose-bush. It dead, but Cas- 

 siou, he say, been breathe when bury, because have air in 

 lung. Then gendarme take hoi' Pepe, and she tell right 

 out she 'fraid for her husban', an' when babee born she go 

 in night an' dig hole an' plant her babee under rose- 

 bush. Now, maybe white people say that Pepe jus' 

 like all T'ytee woman." 



Lovaina wore a wine-colored peignoif, and in her red- 

 brown hair many strands of the diaphanous reva-reva, 

 delicate and beautiful, a beloved ornament taken from 

 the young palm-leaf. O'Laughlin Considine and 

 Brooke were much concerned for the unhappy mother, 

 and asked how she was. 



"She cut off her hair," answered. Lovaina, "like I do 

 when my I'i'l boy was killed in cyclone nineteen huner' 

 six. It never grow good after like before." Her hair 

 was quite two feet long and very luxuriant, and like all 

 Tahitian hair, simply in two plaits. 



Brooke expressed his curiosity over what Lovaina 

 had said, "jus' like all T'ytee woman." 



"Was that a custom of Tahiti mothers, to bury their 

 babes ahve at birth?" he asked. 



Lovaina blushed. 



"Better you ask Tetuanui 'bout them Arioi," she re- 

 plied confusedly. 



