My father quarrelled
bitterly with the priests because they would not bury her in holy
ground. I think he no longer believed afterward. I loved him very much.
He was good to me; and I was a queen in that little island. All the
negroes loved me, because of my mother, I think, who was partly
descended from slaves, as they were. But I had not begun to understand
how hard it was all going to be when my father sent me to a convent in
Cuba.
"I hated to go, but while I was there I learned all about myself. I
knew that I was outcast. It was"--she raised her hand--"not possible
to stay. I was only fifteen when I came home, but all the same I was a
woman. I was no more a child, and happy no longer. After a while,
perhaps, when I forgot what I had suffered at the convent, I became
less miserable. My father did all in his power to make me happy, and I
was glad the work-people loved me. But I was very lonely. Ah Tsong
understood."
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Can you imagine," she asked, "that when my father was away in distant
parts of the island at night, Ah Tsong slept outside my door? Some of
them say, 'Do not trust the Chinese' I say, except my husband and my
father, I have never known another one to trust but Ah Tsong.
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