Anne started from the sound unhaunted sleep of youth conscious that some one had entered her room and stood by her bed. It proved to be a grinning barefoot coloured maid with coffee, rolls, and a plate of luscious fruit. Anne's untuned ear could make little of the girl's voluble replies to her questions, for the West Indian negroes used one gender only, and made a limited vocabulary cover all demands. But she gathered that it was about half-past-five o'clock, and that the loud bell ringing in the distance informed the world of Nevis that it was market day in Charlestown.
She had been shown the baths the day before and ran down-stairs to the great stone tanks, enjoyed her swim in the sea water quite alone, and returned to her room happy and normal, not a dream lingering in her brain. As she dressed herself she longed for one of those old frocks in which she had taken comfort at Warkworth, but even had not all her ancient wardrobe been diplomatically presented by Mrs. Nunn to the servants of their London lodging, she knew that it was due to her aunt that she present herself at breakfast attired as a young lady of the first fashion. She therefore accommodated herself to a white Indian muslin ruffled to the waist and sweeping the ground all round. The bodice was long and tight, exposing the neck, which Anne covered with a white silk scarf. She put on her second best bonnet, trimmed with lilac flowers instead of feathers, the scoop filled with blonde and mull, and tied under the chin with lilac ribbons. Her waist, encircled by a lilac sash of soft India silk looked no more than eighteen inches round, and she surveyed herself with some complacency, feeling even reconciled to the curls, as they modified the severity of her brow and profile, bringing both into closer harmony with her full mouth and throat.
"But what's the use?" she thought, with a whimsical sigh. "I mean never to marry, so men cannot interest me, and it would be the very irony of fate to make a favourable impression on a poet we wot of. So, it all comes to this: I look my best to gratify the vanity of my aunt. Well, let it pass."
She drew on her gloves and ran down-stairs, meeting no one. As she left the hotel and stood for a few moments on the upper terrace she forgot the discomforts of fashion The packet had arrived late in the afternoon, there had been too much bustle to admit of observing the island in detail, even had the hour been favourable, but this morning it burst upon her in all its beauty.