He had heard of those quadroon connections, as one hears of foreign customs, without any realizing sense of their consequences.

That his father's friend should be a partner in such an alliance, and that these two graceful and accomplished girls should by that circumstance be excluded from the society they would so greatly ornament, surprised and bewildered him.

He recalled that tinge in Rosa's complexion, not golden, but like a faint, luminous reflection of gold, and that slight waviness in the glossy hair, which seemed to him so becoming.

He could not make these peculiarities seem less beautiful to his imagination, now that he knew them as signs of her connection with a proscribed race.

And that bewitching little Floracita, emerging into womanhood, with the auroral light of childhood still floating round her, she seemed like a beautiful Italian child, whose proper place was among fountains and statues and pictured forms of art.