LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 918, 4 June 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ZANETTA, A CREOLE

By Mrs Alexander Fraser. Part I.

We do not require to number many years before we discover that the term ' existence' is far from being synonymous with the term 'life.' The former begins at birth and ends with death, while there are many human beings who from birth to death never live at all; or if they do, their lives are freighted with issues that, in result at least, extend bevond the earth they tread. There is a third state, however, in which, amidst a pale colourless existence, a bright flash of light breaks in suddenly, dying away as suddenly as it came ; and to this state, the woman wh >se name heads this story was heir. Just for a bripf period that could be counted by weeks her pulse beat fast with the quick throb of feeling, a mighty absorbing passion awoke within her, rousing her soul to the centre, stirring it and filling it, and teaching it the lesson which is as old as time, yet which each new-born child must perforce learn for i+self—the lesson that delight is twin with pain, and that to live if to suffer. The long and weary term was over. The welcome vacation had come to the schoolroom, outside the window of which he ivy tropical foliage drooped, and within which fragrant tropical breezes swept. Some glad, some sorrowful, the scholars had taken their departure. Most of the teachers had followed suit, and after a few days of confusion, the large and well-known pensionnat, which was usually such a busy hive of life, sank into a strange silence, and the half-d >zen inmates moved about the wide dormitories, the long corridors, the vacant classrooms, like unreal shadows of what had been. In all the West Indies there was no school so popular as Mount Ephraim House, which had been established in Kingston by an enterprising Frenchwoman The teachers •were foreign as a rule. There was a middleaged German, with a painfully long neck and painfully weak eyes, who tnight music, wore spectacles, ate sauerkraut, and played like Thalberg. There was a vivacious Parisian, with the sallowist skin and the blackest orbs in all Jamaica, with a lore of toilettes next to insanity, and a talent for arranging them next to miraculous ; and finally there was a young Creole—a stately handsome girl, who had been in the school only one session— Avho talked verv little about herself, who bore the stamp of jzentle rearing, and whose name was Zanetta Le Llercq. It was the third day after the establishment had formally closed that this girl was alone in one of the dormitories, through which, at a late hour, the first breath of the land breeze began to sweep. The Creole had spent the whole of the long sultry noon alone—the noontide which in the tropics has more than the stillness of an English midnight; and now that various sounds proved that the universal trance of siestas was at last broken, she left unfinished a letter she had been writing, and went to | one of the windows. As she leant out, the sun-god sank into the distant ocean, and instantly the whole town awoke into life. Windows that had been barred against the fierce rays of a vertical sun opened wide at the first stirrings of the breeze among the plumy leaves without. Streets that had been deserted by all save a few lounging

negroes began to fill with carriages and pedestrians. Sounds of passing feet, hum of voices, laughter, and strains of distant song floated up to the 'girl, and from the shade that crept over her beautiful face it seemed as if such things had more power to sadden thon to cheer.

Even the pensionnat roused to some degree. Zanetta heard the clatter of voices as the French teacher and three or four girls assembled on the flat roof of the house, and from below came the sound of a piano, which resolved itself into a grand and solemn air as the German teacher found that she had the salon all to herself.

The regal harmonies were rising fuller and fuller on the dying day, when suddenly there came the noise of a horse's hoofs down the street, a crimson flush that even the twilight could not hide on Zanetta's dusky cheek, and a gallant-looking rider who swept by at an easy canter. In passing the school he reined in his horse just a little, aud looked eagerly upwards. The eyes above were looking down great luminous black eyes, frank and tender, and that had no ' cunning to be strange ' in their tawny depths. The two glances crossed like swords. It was only momentary. The horseman smiled, uncovered his handsome head, bent low, and was gone. The girl drew back, the flush already paled, and when a moment later her name was called by a servant, she turned and spoke in the quiet musical voice so well known in the school. ' Here I am. What is it, Eulalie ?' 'A note, miss,' was the answer, while the dainty missive was presented as though it had been a bayonet. ' The messenger waits,' was added, fcas the Creole sat with the envelope unopened in her hand, her brow slightly bent, and a faint reflection of the blush that was gone rising again on her cheek.

' Yes, I know,' she said, with a start. She broke the seal, leaned forward, and by the last light of <lay read as follows : * Dear Miss LeClercq,—We leave Kingston to-morrow for our villa in the hills. Knowing how unpleasant the city is now, we should be pleased if you would spend the vacation with us. If you are agreeable, we will call for you to-morrow at 11 a.m. 'Yours, &c, ' Adelaide Wilton.

Zanetta read the epistle twice over ; then she knitted her forehead again, gave a moment to reflection, smiled slightly, and finally said, • You may go, Eulalie. I will bring the answer down myself. Where is madaine ?' ' Dressing to go out, miss. ' 'Going out ! Then I must see her at once' .

She left the dormitory, ran down a flight of stairs, crossed a corridor, and knocked at a door^ It was the private apartment of madame. This august personage, a showy but decidedly sallow specimen of France, was engaged in the mysteries of her toilitte ; but she greeted the teacher with cordiality, and when the nature of her errand was explained gave a beaming consent. 'There are no better people in Jamaica than the Wiltons,' she decreed. ' They are at the head of fashion, and they live in elegance. Of course you must go. Chcre enfant, I shall miss you. I shall die of that weary Madame Shaeffer and that chattering Lucelle, but I dare not be so selfish as to keep you. soir, ma toute belle. Go and anrase yourself.' Dismissed in this hasty and benedictory fashion, Zanetta wrote an affirmative to Mrs Wilton's invitation ; and after her reply was despatched she asked herself if she had done wisely. These Wiltons had known her father, a well-to-do planter in bygone years, but who had died, leaving his family penniless. And when the girl came to Kingston, to enter as teacher in the school where Amelia Wilton was a pupil, her people had had the grace to show the stranger some faint attention. She had been invited to a party or two, and at these had had the good or bad fortune to meet a certain Derrick Mainwaring, of the governor's staff, who, attracted by her brunette loveliness, had devoted himself to her with more cmpressement than discretion. After a little her invitations entirely ceased, but Amelia Wilton, a frank schoolgirl, not yet broken into the traces of social life, carlessly betrayed the secret of the sudden coldness. (To be continued.)