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VS2i77 
 MONSIEUR MOTTE 
 
 By GRACE KING 
 
 N E W YORK 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 
 714 Broadway 
 
 1888 
 
Copyright, 1S8S, 
 By A. C. Armstrong and Son. 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
TO 
 
 fHr. Charles Dutilro Earner, 
 
 V.'HOSE KINDLY RECOGNITION OF THE POSSIBILITIES 
 
 OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE HAS BEEN" AN 
 
 ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUTHERN 
 
 WRITERS. 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Monsieur Motte n 
 
 On the Plantation no 
 
 The Drama of an Evening 1S1 
 
 Marriage of Marie Modeste 263 
 
MONSIEUR MOTTE. 
 

 
 ^^9»JK 
 
 MONSIEUR MOTTE. 
 
 IT was near mid-day in June. A daz- 
 
 Hsfll 
 
 Plf zling stream of vertical sun-rays fell 
 
 Jflfl into the quadrangular courtyard of 
 the Institute St. Denis, and filled it to suffoca- 
 tion with light and heat. The flowers which 
 grew in little beds, dotting the gray-flagged 
 surface, bowed their heads under their leaves 
 for shelter. 
 
 A thin strip of shadow, stretching from the 
 side of the schoolhouse, began to creep over 
 the garden, slowly following the sun in its pro- 
 gress past the obtruding walls of neighboring 
 buildings, until he should disappear behind a 
 certain square steeple far off in the distance; 
 then the shade would entirely cover the yard ; 
 then the stars would be coming out, languid 
 and pale ; and then the fragrance of oleander 
 
12 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 and jasmine, travelling from yard to yard, 
 would burden the air, soothing the senses in 
 order to seduce the imagination. 
 
 Along the narrow shaded strip, quite filling it 
 up, moved a class of girls in Indian file, their 
 elbows scraping against the rugged bricks of 
 the wall as they held their books up to the 
 openings of their sun-bonnets. A murmur of 
 rapidly articulated words, like the murmur of 
 boiling water in a closed kettle, came from the 
 leaves of their books, while from their hidden 
 lips dropped disjointed fragments of " l'Histoire 
 de France." 
 
 The foundation, as well as key-stone, of St. 
 Denisian education, it was but natural that the 
 examination in " l'Histoire de France, par D. 
 Levi Alvares, pere," should fill the last days of 
 the scholastic term ; and as a prize in that ex- 
 ercise set the brightest crown upon the head of 
 the victor, it was not strange that it should be 
 conducted with such rigidity and impartiality as 
 to demoralize panic-stricken contestants whose 
 sex usually warranted justice in leaving one eye 
 at least unbound. 
 
 Under the circumstances, a trust in luck is 
 
Monsieur Motte. 13 
 
 the most reliable source of comfort. If expe- 
 rience proved anything, if the study of the his- 
 tory of France itself made one point clear, it 
 was the dependence of great events on trifles, 
 the unfailing interposition of the iraittcudu, and, 
 consequently, the utter futility of preparation. 
 The graduating class of 1 874^ turned their pages 
 with clammy fingers, and repeated mechani- 
 cally, with unwearied tongues, any passage 
 upon which Fate should direct their eyes; 
 none dared be slighted with impunity, the most 
 insignificant being perhaps the very one to trip 
 them up ; the most familiar, the traitor to play 
 them false. A laggard church clock in the 
 neighborhood gave them each eleven separate, 
 distinct shocks. It warned them that two min- 
 utes and a half had already been consumed on 
 the road from one class-room to the other, and 
 reminded them of Monsieur Mignot's diabolical 
 temper. 
 
 A little girl, also in a large sun-bonnet, with 
 a placard marked " Passe-Partout" around- her 
 neck, turned an angle of the building suddenly 
 and threw the nervous ranks into dire confusion; 
 the books went down, the bonnets up. 
 
14 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " Seigneur! qu'est-ce que c est f" 
 
 " Ma cliere! how you frightened me ! " 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! I thought it was Monsieur 
 Mignot! " 
 
 " I am trembling all over ! " 
 
 " I can hardly stand up ! " 
 
 " Just feel how my heart beats ! " 
 
 " You had better hurry up, mes enfants" re- 
 plied the little one, in the patronizing tone of 
 personal disinterestedness; " it is past eleven." 
 
 " But we don't know one word," they groaned 
 in unison, — " not one single word." 
 
 "Ah, bah ! you are frightened, that's all; you 
 always say that." She gave one of them a 
 good-natured push in the direction of the door 
 about which they were standing in distressful 
 hesitation. 
 / " I tell you, old Mignot is in a horrible temper. 
 | // a fait les quatre cents coups in our class ; 
 threw his inkstand at Stephanie Morel's head." 
 
 The door, with startling coincidence, was vio- 
 lently pulled open at these words, and a gray- 
 haired, spectacled old gentleman thrust out an 
 irate face in quest of his dilatory class. Thrown 
 by the catastrophe into a state of complete nes- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 15 
 
 cience of all things historical, from Clovis to 
 Napoleon, the young ladies jerked oft" their sun- 
 bonnets and entered the room, while the little 
 girl escaped at full speed. A drowsy, quiet, 
 peaceful half-hour followed in the yard, — a sur- 
 prising silence for the centre of a busy city, con- 
 sidering the close proximity of two hundred 
 school-girls. It was a mocking contrast to the 
 scene of doubt, hesitation, and excitement on 
 the other side of the closed door, — a contrast 
 advantageous to the uneducated happiness of the 
 insects and flowers. 
 
 A door-bell rang; not the bell of the pretty 
 little gate which admitted visitors to the rose- 
 hedged, violet-bordered walk leading to Ma- 
 dame's antichambre, but the bell of the capacious 
 porte-cochere which was reserved for the exits and 
 entrances of scholars and domestics. After a 
 carefully measured pause, the ring was repeated, 
 then again, and again. The rusty organ of in- 
 tercommunication squeaked and creaked plain- 
 tively after each disturbance as if forced from 
 a sick-bed to do painful and useless service. 
 A gaunt, red-haired woman finally came out in 
 obedience to the summons, with an elaboration 
 
1 6 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 of slowness which the shuffling sabots clearly 
 betrayed to the outsider, as evidenced by a last 
 superfluous, unnecessarily energetic pull of the 
 bell-knob. 
 
 She carefully unrolled her sleeves as she saun- 
 tered along, and stood until she loosened the 
 cord which reefed her dress to an unconven- 
 tional height. Then she opened the grille and 
 looked out. 
 
 " Ah, je le savais Men" she muttered, with 
 strong Gascon accent. 
 
 There was a diminutive door cut into the large 
 gate. It looked, with its coat of fresh paint, 
 like a barnacle on the weather-beaten exterior. 
 Opening with the facility of greased hinges, it 
 was an unavoidable compromise between the 
 heavy cypress timber and iron fastenings, pre- 
 scribed by the worldly, or heavenly, experience 
 of St. Denis as the proper protection of a young 
 ladies' boarding-school, and the almost incessant 
 going and coming which secluded femininity and 
 excluded shops made necessary. 
 
 " But I can't get in there ! " said a woman 
 outside. 
 
 " Taut Pis." And the little door was closed. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 17 
 
 " But I must come in with my basket." 
 
 A shrug of the shoulders was the only reply 
 through the grille. 
 
 " It is Mamzelle Marie's toilet for the ex- 
 hibition." 
 
 The little gate was again held open. 
 
 " Don't you see I can't get in there? " 
 
 " Ca m'est egal." 
 
 A snort of exasperation was heard on the out- 
 side, and a suppressed " C'est unpen fort /" 
 
 " Will you open the big gate for me so that I 
 can bring in Mamzelle Marie's dress? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Well, then, I shall ring at Madame's bell." 
 
 The white woman did not lack judgment. She 
 was maintaining her own in a quarrel begun 
 years ago ; a quarrel involving complex ques- 
 tions of the privileges of order and the distinc- 
 tions of race ; a quarrel in which hostilities were 
 continued, year by year, with no interruptions 
 of courtesy or mitigation by truce. This occa- 
 sion was one of the perquisites of Jeanne's posi- 
 tion of femme de^menage, — slight compensation 
 enough when compared to the_indignities__p_ut 
 upon her as a white woman, and the humilia- 
 2 
 
1 8 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 tions as a sensitive one by "cette negresse Marce- 
 lite" But the duration of triumph must_be 
 carefully measured. Marcelite's ultimatum, if 
 carried out, would quickly reverse their relative 
 positions by a bonus to Marcelite in the shape 
 of a reprimand to Jeanne. She allowed her foe, 
 however, to carry her basket in the hot sun as 
 far as the next bell, and even waited until she 
 put her hand on it before the iron bar fell and 
 the massive structure was allowed to swing 
 open. 
 
 " Ristocrate /" she muttered, without looking 
 at either woman or basket. 
 
 " Canaille! " whispered the other, with her 
 head thrown back and her nose in the air. 
 
 Glancing at the line of shade in the yard to 
 see how near it was to twelve o'clock, for want 
 of other accommodation Marcelite went into 
 an open arbor, put her basket on the floor, and 
 wiped her face with a colored foulard handker- 
 chief. " Fail c/iaud mo dit toi," she said aloud in 
 Creole, her language for self-communion. She 
 pulled her skirts out on each side, and sat down 
 with a force that threatened the stability of the 
 bench ; then, careless of creeping and crawling 
 
Monsieur Motte. 19 
 
 possibilities, leaned her head back against the 
 vine-covered wall. The green leaves formed a 
 harmonious frame for the dark-brown face, red 
 and yellow tignon, and the large gold ear-rings 
 hanging beneath two glossy coques of black wool. 
 Her features were regular and handsome accord- 
 ing to the African type, with a strong, sensuous 
 expression, subdued but not obliterated. Her 
 soft black eyes showed in their voluptuous 
 depths intelligence and strength and protecting 
 tenderness. Her stiff purple calico dress settled 
 in defining folds about her portly limbs. A 
 white kerchief was pinned over her untram- 
 melled bosom ; her large, full, supple waist was 
 encircled by the strings of her apron, which 
 were tied in a careful bow at her side. 
 
 Besides the large basket, she carried on her 
 arm a small covered one, which, if opened, would 
 reveal her calling to be that of hairdressing. She 
 was the hairdresser of the school, and as such, the 
 general chargce d 'affaires, confidcnte, messenger, 
 and adviser of teachers and scholars. Her dis- 
 Qretio n waa p r o yen b e yon dsuspicion. Herjudg- 
 ment, or rather her intuition, was bold, quick, 
 and effective. In truth, Marcelite was as indis- 
 
20 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 pensable as a lightning-rod to the boarding- 
 school, conducted as it was under the austere 
 disciplines of the_pld regime. Her smooth, round 
 hands and taper fingers had been polished by 
 constant friction with silken locks; her^ familiar, 
 polite, gentle, servile manners were those con- 
 tracted during a courtly life of dependent inti- 
 macy with superiors. It was said that her basket 
 carried other articles besides combs, brushes, 
 and cosmetics, and that her fingers had been 
 found preferable to the post-office for the de- 
 livery of certain implicative missives written in 
 the prose or verse of irresistible emotion. Even 
 without her basket, any one, from her hands, 
 gait, and language, would recognize a ha irdresser 
 of the elite, while in New Orleans, Jn the Quar- 
 ticr Creole, there was hardly a man, woman, or 
 child who did not call her by name : Marcelite 
 GauloisJ 
 
 She lifted a palmetto fan, bound and tied to 
 her waist with black ribbon, and holding it up 
 between her and observation, betook herself in 
 quiet and privacy to slumber, — a nap of deli- 
 cious relaxation, so gentle that the bite of a 
 mosquito, the crawling of an ant, an incipient 
 
Monsieur Motte. 21 
 
 snore, startled it; but so tenacious that the 
 uplifted hand and dropping head resettled them- 
 selves without breaking its delicate filaments. 
 A little, thin, rusty-voiced bell had now one of 
 its three important daily announcements to 
 make, — Recreation Time. From all over the 
 city came corroborative evidence of the fact, by 
 chronometers, some a little ahead and some a 
 little behind meridian. This want of unanimity 
 proclaimed the notorious and distressing dif- 
 ference of two minutes and a half between 
 Church and State, — a difference in which the 
 smallest watch in the school could not avoid 
 participation. 
 
 It was the same little girl with the " Passe- 
 Partont" who published the truce to study. 
 The rope of the bell and she were both too 
 short, so she had to stand on tiptoe and jerk it 
 in little quick jumps. The operation involved 
 a terrible disproportion between labor invested 
 and net profit, for which nothing but the glad- 
 some nature of her mission, and the honorary 
 distinction implied in it, could have compen- 
 sated her. A moment of stillness, during which 
 both the rope and the little girl quieted them- 
 
22 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 selves, and then, a shower of little girls fell 
 into the yard, — all of them little girls, but not 
 all of them children, and as much alike as 
 drops of different colored water. 
 
 They were all dressed in calico dresses made 
 in the same way, with very full, short skirts, 
 and very full, short waists, fastened, matron- 
 fashion, in front. They all wore very tight, 
 glossy, fresh, black French kid boots, with 
 tassels or bows hanging from the top. With 
 big sun-bonnets, or heavily veiled hats on their 
 heads, thick gloves on their hands, and hand- 
 kerchiefs around their necks, they were walking 
 buttresses against the ardent sun. They held 
 their lunch baskets like bouquets, and their 
 heads as if they wore crowns. They carried 
 on conversations in sweet, low voices, with 
 interrupting embraces and apostrophic tender- 
 nesses : — 
 
 " Chhe! " 
 
 " Cheriel " 
 
 " Angel " 
 
 " M'amiel " 
 
 They had a grace of ease, the gift of genera- 
 tions; a self-composure and polish, dating from 
 
Monsieur Motte. 23 
 
 the cradle. Of course they did not romp, but 
 p romenad ed arm in arm, measuring their steps 
 with dainty particularity ; moving the whole 
 body with rhythmic regularity, displaying and 
 acquiring at the same time a sinuosity of mo- 
 tion. Their hair hung in plaits so far below 
 their waists that it threatened to grow into a 
 measuring-tape for their whole length. 
 
 The angular Jeanne appeared, holding a wai- 
 ter at arm's-length over her head. She had no 
 need to cluck or chirp ; the sound of her sabots 
 was enough to call around her in an instant an 
 eager brood of hungry boarders, jumping and 
 snatching for their portion of lunch. There 
 was the usual moment of obstruction over the 
 point of etiquette whether they should take 
 their own piece of bread and butter or receive 
 it from Jeanne. The same useless sacrifice of a 
 test slice was made, and the obstinate servant 
 had to give in with the same consolatory satis- 
 faction of having been again true to her fixed 
 principle to make herself as disagreeable as 
 possible under any circumstances that the day 
 might bring forth. There is great field for 
 choice, even in slices of bread and butter. The 
 
24 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 ends, or knots of the loaves, split longitudi- 
 nally, offer much more appetizing combinations 
 of crust and crumb than the round inside slices. 
 Knots, however, were the prerogative of the big 
 girls ; inside slices the grievance of the little 
 ones. To-day, " comme toujours," as they said, 
 with a shrug, the primary classes had to take 
 what was left them. But their appetite was so 
 good, they ate their homely fare with so much 
 gusto, that the day scholars looked on enviously 
 and despised their own epicurean baskets, 
 which failed to elicit such expectations and 
 never afforded them similar gratification. 
 
 A la Jin des fins! The door which concealed 
 the terrible struggle going on with the history 
 of France was opened. All rushed forward for 
 news, with eager sympathy. It was a dejected 
 little army that filed out after so protracted a 
 combat, with traces of tears in their eyes and all 
 over their flushed cheeks. Tired and nervous, 
 not one would confess to a ray of hope. Cer- 
 tainty of defeat had succeeded to certainty of 
 failure. The history of France, with its dis- 
 astrous appliances of chronology, dynasties, 
 conquests, and revolutions, had gained, ac- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 25 
 
 cording to them, a complete and unquestioned 
 victory. 
 
 " Marie JVEodeste, look at Marcelite," said 
 one of the girls, hailing the diversion. 
 
 The bonne was coming out of the garden- 
 house with her basket. One of the graduating 
 class rushed forward to meet her, and both 
 together disappeared in the direction of the 
 dormitory stairway. " It is her toilette for the 
 exhibition," was whispered, and curious eyes 
 followed the basket invested with such pre- 
 ternatural importance. " They say le vieux 
 is going to give her a superb one." 
 
 The Grand Concert Musicale et Distribution 
 de Prix was to take place the next evening. 
 All parents and friends had, for two weeks, 
 been invited to "assist" by their presence. 
 This annual fete was pre-eminently \the fete of 
 St. Denis. It was the goal of the scholastic 
 course, the beginning of vacation, and the set 
 term to the young ladies' aspirations if not am- 
 bition. A fair share of books, laurel crowns, 
 in green and gold paper, and a possible real 
 gold medal was with them the end if not the 
 aim of study from the opening of the school 
 
26 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 in September. Personally they could not im- 
 agine any state or condition in life when knowl- 
 edge of French history would be a comfort 
 or cosmography an assistance ; but prizes were 
 so many concrete virtues which lasted fresh 
 into grandmotherhood. ) Noblesse oblige, that 
 the glory of maternal achievements be not 
 dimmed in these very walls where their moth- 
 ers, little Creoles like themselves, strove for 
 laurel crowns culled from the same imperish- 
 able tree in Rue Royale. 
 
 Marcelite followed Marie through the dor- 
 mitory, down the little aisle, between the rows 
 of beds with their veils of mosquito netting, 
 until they came to the- farthest corner; which, 
 when one turned one's back to the rest of the 
 chamber, had all the seclusion and " sociabil- 
 ity" of a private apartment. The furniture, 
 however, did not include chairs, so Marie 
 seated herself on the side of the bed, and, 
 taking off her bonnet, awaited Marcelite's 
 pleasure to initiate her into the delightful mys- 
 teries of the basket. 
 
 She wondered] where Marcelite had picked 
 up the artistic expedient of heightening the 
 
Monsieur Motte. 27 
 
 effect by playing on the feelings of the spec- 
 tator ; * and she wondered if carrying that bas- 
 ket up the stairs had really tired those strong 
 shoulders and make her so dreadfully hot; and 
 if it were really necessary that each one of 
 those thousand pins should be quilted -into the 
 front of that white kerchief; and if Marcelite 
 had made a vow not to open her mouth until 
 she got out the last pin; and if — 
 
 She was naturally nervous and impatient, 
 and twisted and turned ceaselessly on the bed 
 during the ordeal of assumed procrastination. 
 Her black eyes were oversized for her face, 
 oversized and overweighted with expression; 
 and most of the time, as to-day, they were 
 accompanied by half-moon shadows which 
 stretched half-way down her cheek. Over her 
 forehead and temples the hieroglyphic tracery 
 of blue veins might be seen, until it became 
 obscured under the masses of black hair whose 
 heavy plaits burdened the delicate head and 
 strained the slender neck. The exterior of a 
 girl of seventeen ! That frail mortal encase- 
 ment which precocious inner life threatens to 
 rend and destroy. The appealing languor, the 
 
28 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 uncomplaining lassitude, the pathetic apathy, 
 the transparent covering through which is seen 
 
 ( the growth of the woman in the body of the 
 
 V child. 
 
 Marcelite saw upon the bed the impatient 
 figure of a petulant girl, wild for the sight 
 of her first toilette de bal. There lay on the 
 bed, in reality, a proud, reserved, eager, pas- 
 sionate spirit, looking past toilettes, past grad- 
 uating, past studies and examinations ; looking 
 from the prow of an insignificant vessel into 
 the broad prospect, so near, so touching near, 
 reserved for her, and all girls of seventeen, — 
 that unique realm called "Woman's Kingdom." 
 
 Romances and poetry had been kept from 
 her like wine and spices. But the flowers 
 bloomed, and music had chords, and moon- 
 light rays, and were the bars of the school 
 never so strong, and the rules never so rigid, 
 they could not prevent her heart from going 
 out toward the rays, nor from listening to the 
 music, nor from inhaling the breath of the 
 flowers. And what they said is what they 
 always say to the girl of seventeen. It is 
 the love-time of life, when the heart first puts 
 
Monsieur Motte. 29 
 
 forth its flowers ;_and, what boarding-school can 
 frustrate spring? Her mouth, like her eyes, 
 was encircled with a shadow, faint, almost 
 imperceptible, as was the timid suggestion 
 of nascent passion which it gave to the thin, 
 sad lips. 
 
 She was four years old when she came to 
 this school ; so Marcelite told her, for she 
 could not remember. Now she was seventeen. 
 She looked at the strong, full maturity of Mar- 
 celite. ( Would she, Marie, ever be like that? 
 Had Marcelite ever been like her? At seven- 
 teen, did she ever feel this way? This — oh, 
 this longing ! Could Marcelite put her finger 
 on the day, as Marie could, when this emotion 
 broke into her heart, that thought into her 
 brain? Did Marcelite know the origin of 
 blushes, the cause of tremors? Did Marcelite 
 ever pray to die to be relieved from vague 
 apprehensions, and then pray to live in the 
 faith of some great unknown but instinctive 
 prophecy? 
 
 She forbore to ask. IfJ\larcelite_had had a\ 
 mother ! — But did girls even ask their mothers 
 these things? But she had no mother! Good, 
 
30 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 devoted, loyal as she was, Marcelite was not 
 a mother — not her mother. [She had stopped 
 at the boundary where the mother ceases to 
 be a physical and becomes a psychical ne- 
 cessity. The child still -dung to Marcelite, 
 but the young woman was motherless. She 
 had an uncle, however, who might become a 
 father. 
 
 "La!" Marcelite had exhausted her last de- 
 visable subterfuge, and made known her readi- 
 ness to begin the show. 
 
 " La ! mon bebe ! la, ma mignonne ! what do 
 you think of that? " She turned it around by 
 the belt; it seemed all covered over with bub- 
 bles of muslin and frostings of lace. 
 
 " Just look at that ! Ah ha ! I thought you 
 would be astonished! You see that lace? 
 Ca cest dn vrai, no doubt about that, — real 
 Valenciennes. You think I don't know real 
 lace, heinf and mousseline des Lndes? You ask 
 Madame Treize — you know what she said? 
 ' Well, Marcelite, that is the prettiest pattern 
 of lace and the finest piece of muslin I almost 
 ever saw.' Madame Treize told me that herself; 
 and it's true, for I know it myself." 
 
Monsieur Motte. 31 
 
 " Madame Treize, Marcelite? " 
 
 Madame Treize was the ou ne pent plus of 
 New Orleans for fashion and extravagance. 
 
 " Yes, Madame Treize. Who do you think 
 was going to make your dress, Jiein? Madame 
 N ' importe-qui? " 
 
 " Marcelite, it must have cost so much ! " 
 
 " Eh Hen, it 's all paid for. What have you 
 got to do with that? All you have got to do 
 is to put it on and wear it. Oh, mon bcbef ma 
 petite cheric! " — what tones of love her rich 
 voice could carry, — " if it had cost thousands 
 and thousands of dollars it would not be too 
 fine for you, nor too pretty." 
 
 " But, Marcelite, I will be ashamed to wear 
 it; it is too beautiful." 
 
 But the eyes sparkled joyfully, and the lips 
 trembled with delightful anticipations. 
 
 "Here's the body! You see those bows? 
 That was my taste. I said to myself, ' She must 
 have blue ribbon bows on the shoulder,' and I 
 went back and made Madame Treize put them 
 on. \ Oh, I know Madame Treize; and Madame 
 Treize, she knows me ! " 
 
 "And the shoes, Marcelite?" 
 
32 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 Hands and voice fell with utter disgust. 
 
 " Now you see, Mamzelle, you always do 
 that. Question, question, question, all the time. 
 Why did n't you wait? Now you have spoiled 
 it all, — all the surprise ! " 
 
 " Pardon, Marcelite, I did not mean ; but I 
 was afraid you had forgotten — " 
 
 " Oh, mon bebe ! when did Marcelite ever 
 forget anything you wanted?" 
 
 Marie blushed with shame at a self-accusation 
 of ingratitude. 
 
 " Ma bonne Marcelite ! I am so impatient, I 
 cannot help it." 
 
 A bundle of shoes was silently placed in her lap. 
 
 " White satin boots ! Mar-ce-lite ! White 
 satin boots for me? Oh, I can't believe it! 
 And I expected black leather ! — how shall I 
 ever thank my uncle for them ; and all this? 
 How can I ever do it? " 
 
 The radiant expression faded away from the 
 nurse's face at these words. 
 
 " Oh, but I know it was your idea, Marcelite ! 
 My good, kind, dear Marcelite ! I know it was 
 all your idea. He never could have thought 
 of all these beautiful things, — a man ! " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 33 
 
 She put her arms around the bonne's neck 
 and laid her head on the broad, soft shoulder, 
 as she used to do when she was a little, little 
 girl. 
 
 " Ah, Marcelite, my uncle can never be as 
 kind to me as you are. He gives me the 
 money, but you — " — 
 
 She felt the hands patting her back and the 
 lips pressed against her hair; but she could not 
 see the desperate, passionate, caressing eyes, 
 "savoring" her like the lips of an eager dog. 
 
 " Let us try them on," said Marcelite. 
 
 She knelt on the floor and stripped off one 
 shoe and stocking. When the white foot on its 
 fragile ankle lay in her dark palm, her passion 
 broke out afresh. [She kissed it over and over 
 again ; she nestled it in her bosom ; she talked 
 baby-talk to it in Creole ; she pulled on the fine 
 stocking as if every wrinkle were an offence, and 
 slackness an unpardonable crime. How they 
 both labored over the boot, — straining, pulling, 
 smoothing the satin, coaxing, urging, drawing 
 the foot ! What patience on both sides ! What 
 precaution that the glossy white should meet 
 with no defilement ! Finally the button-holes 
 3 
 
34 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 were caught over the buttons, and to all intents 
 and purposes a beautiful, symmetrical, solidified 
 satin foot lay before them. 
 
 "Too tight?" 
 
 It might have been a question, but it sounded 
 more like the laying of a doubt. 
 
 " Too tight ! just look ! " 
 
 The little toes made a vigorous demonstration 
 of contempt and denial. 
 
 " I can change them if they are." 
 
 " Do you want me to wear sabots like Jeanne ? " 
 
 " They will stretch, anyhow." 
 
 Marcelite preferred yielding to her own rather 
 than to another's conviction, even when they 
 both were identical. 
 
 The boots were taken off, rolled in tissue- 
 paper, and put away in the armoirc, which was 
 now opened to its fullest extent to receive the 
 dress. 
 
 Marie leaned against the pillow of the bed and 
 clasped her hands over her head. She listened 
 dreamily and contentedly to her praises thrown 
 off by Marcelite's fluent tongue. What would 
 the reality be, if the foretaste were so sweet? 
 
 " I wonder what he will say, Marcelite? " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 35 
 
 " Quiga?" 
 
 " My uncle. Do you think he will be pleased ? " 
 
 " What makes you so foolish, bebe ? " 
 
 " But that 's not foolish, Marcelite." 
 
 "Hum!" 
 
 " Say, Marcelite, do you think he will be 
 satisfied? " 
 
 "Satisfied with what?" 
 
 " Oh, you know, Marcelite, — satisfied with 
 me." 
 
 The head was thrust too far into the ar.moire 
 for an immediate answer. 
 
 " How can I tell, Mamzelle?" 
 
 " Mamzelle ! Mamzelle ! Madame Marcelite ! " 
 
 " Well then, bcbe." 
 
 "Anyway, he will come to the concert — 
 Hein, Marcelite?" 
 
 " What is it, Zozo?" 
 
 " My uncle ; he is coming to the concert, 
 is n't he? " 
 
 Marcelite shrugged her shoulders ; her mouth 
 was filled with pins. 
 
 " Ma bonne! do not be so mean ; tell me if he 
 is coming, and what he said." 
 
 " Poor eentleman ! he is so old." 
 
 J 
 
36 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 "Did he tell you that?" 
 
 Marie laughed ; this was a standing joke be- 
 tween them. 
 
 " But, my child, what do you want him to say? 
 You bother me so with your questions, I don't 
 know what I am doing." 
 
 " But, Marcelite, it is only natural for me to 
 want him to come to the concert and see me in 
 my pretty dress that he gave me." 
 
 "Well, when one is old and sick — " 
 
 " Sick ! ah, you did not tell me that." 
 
 " But I tell it to you all the time ! " 
 
 " Oh, Marcelite ! " 
 
 There is no better subject on which to ex- 
 ercise [crude eloquence than the delinquencies 
 of laundresses. / A heinous infraction had been 
 committed against the integrity of one of Marie's 
 garments, and Marcelite threatened to consume 
 the rest of the day in expressions of disgust and 
 indignation. 
 
 " So he is not coming to the concert ? " the 
 girl demanded, excitedly. 
 
 " Ah ! there 's the bell ; you had better run 
 quick before they send for you." 
 
 " No, I am excused until time to practise my 
 
Monsieur Motte. 37 
 
 duet. Marcelite," — the voice lost its excited 
 tone and became pleading, humble, and timid, — 
 " Marcelite, do you think my uncle will like 
 me? " 
 
 " Moil Dicu! yes, yes, yes." 
 
 " Mais ne fimpaticntc pas, ma bonne, I can't 
 help thinking about it. \ He has never seen me — 
 since I was a baby, I mean — and I don't recol- 
 lect him at all, at all. Oh, Marcelite ! I have 
 tried so often, so often to recall him, and my 
 maman " — she spoke it as shyly as an infant 
 does the name of God in its first prayer. " If I 
 could only go just one little point farther back, 
 just that little bit " — she measured off a demi- 
 centimetre on her finger — "but impossible. 
 Maybe it will all come back to me when I see 
 him, and the house, and the furniture. Perhaps 
 if I had been allowed to see it only once or 
 twice, I might be able to remember something. 
 It is hard, Marcelite, it is very hard not even to 
 be able to recollect a mother. To-morrow even- 
 ing!" — she gave a long, long sigh, — "only 
 to-morrow evening more ! " 
 
 The depravity of the washerwoman must 
 have got beyond even Marcelite's powers of 
 
38 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 description, for she had stopped talking, but 
 held her head inside the shelf. 
 
 " One reason I want him to come to the 
 concert is to take me home with him. In the 
 first place, Madame would n't let me go unless 
 he came for me ; and — and I want the girls to 
 see him ; they have teased me so much about 
 him. I believe, Marcelite, that if my graduating 
 were put off one day longer, or if my uncle did 
 not come for me to-morrow evening, I would 
 die. How foolish ! Just think of all these years 
 I have been here, summer after summer, the 
 only boarder left during vacation ! I did n't 
 seem to mind it then, but now it 's all differ- 
 ent; everything has become so different this 
 last year." 
 
 The tears had been gathering in her eyes for 
 some time, and she had been smearing them 
 with her finger off the side of her face to escape 
 Marcelite's notice ; but now they came too fast 
 for that, so she was forced to turn over and hide 
 her face flat in the pillow. 
 
 " Crying, moil bebef What is the matter with 
 you — oh, oh ! — you do not feel well ! some- 
 thing you do not like about your toilette, hein? 
 
Monsieur Motte. 39 
 
 Tell Marcelite, cherie; tell your bonne. There ! 
 there ! " 
 
 Sobs were added to tears, until she seemed in 
 conflict with a tornado of grief. She pressed 
 her head tighter and tighter against the pillow 
 to stifle the noise, but her narrow, high shoul- 
 ders shook convulsively, and her feet twisted 
 and turned, one over the other, in uncontrol- 
 lable agitation. Marcelite stood by her side, 
 a look of keen torture on her emotional face. 
 If the child had only been larger, or stronger! if 
 she did not writhe so helplessly before her ! if 
 she had fought less bravely against the rending 
 sobs ! Ah ! and if the shrouded form of a dead 
 mother had not intervened with outstretched 
 arms and reproachful eyes fixed upon Mar^ 
 celite . She could hold out no longer, but fell 
 on her knees by the bed, and clasped her arms 
 around the little one to hold her quiet. With 
 her face on the pillow, and her lips close to the 
 red, burning ear, she whispere d th e _sqc> thing 
 tendernesses of a maternal heart. There was 
 a balsam which never failed : a story she had 
 often told, but which repetition had only made 
 more difficult, more hesitating; to-day the 
 
40 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 words fell like lead, — about the father Marie 
 had never seen, the mother she had never 
 known, the home-shelter of her baby years, 
 beyond even her imagination, and the guardian 
 uncle, the question of whose coming to the 
 concert had so excited her. 
 
 "Is Marie Modeste here?" asked a little 
 voice through a far-off door. 
 
 Marie started. " Yes." Her voice was rough, 
 weak, and trembling. 
 
 " They want you for the ' CJieval de Bronze!" 
 
 She sat up and let the nurse smooth her hair 
 and bathe her face, keeping her lips tightly 
 shut over the ebbing sobs. 
 
 " Thank you, Marcelite. Thank you for 
 everything — for my beautiful dress, and my 
 shoes ; and thank my uncle too, and try and 
 persuade him to come to-morrow evening, 
 won't you, Marcelite? Do not tell him about 
 my crying, though. ( Oh, I want to go home so 
 much, and to see him ! You know if you want 
 you can get him to come. Won't you promise 
 me, ma bonne? "J 
 
 " You know I would kill myself for yo\\,jnon 
 
Monsieur Motte. 41 
 
 The good little Paula was waiting outside the 
 door. Uncontrollable tears are too common in 
 a girls' school to attract attention. They were 
 crises which, though not to be explained, even 
 the smallest girl understood intuitively, and for 
 which were tacitly employed convenient con- 
 ventional excuses. 
 
 " The concoitrs was very difficult, cheref " 
 
 " Yes, very difficult." 
 
 " And Monsieur Mignot is so trying. I think 
 he gets more exigeanl every day." 
 
 And they kissed each other sympathetically 
 on the stairway. 
 
 " Grand Dien Seigneur 7" groaned Marcelite, 
 when Marie had left the room, holding her 
 head with both hands. " What am I going to 
 do now ! I believe I am turning fool ! " 
 
 Life was changing from a brilliant path in 
 white muslin dresses to 'a hideous dilemma; 
 and for once she did not know what to do. A 
 travail seemed going on in her brain ; her natural 
 strength and audacity had completely oozed 
 away from her. ■ She began a vehement mono- 
 logue in creole, reiterating assertions and ex- 
 planations, stopping short always at one point ) 
 
4 2 Monsieur Matte. 
 
 " My God ! I never thought ofjthat." 
 She looked towards the ceiling with violent 
 reproaches to the bon Dicu, doux Jesus, and 
 Sainte- Vierge. Why had they left her alone to 
 manage this? They knew she was_a_" nigger, 
 nigger, nigger" (trying to humiliate and insult 
 herself). Whyjiad n't they done something? 
 Why could n't they do something now? And 
 all she had done for them, and that ungrateful 
 patron saint, the recipient of so much attention, 
 so many favors ! She never had asked them 
 anything for herself, thank God ! Marcelite 
 could always manage her own affairs without 
 the assistance of any one. But her bebe, for 
 whom she had distinctly prayed and burned 
 candles, and confessed and communed, and 
 worked, and toiled, and kept straight ! She 
 clasped her flesh in her sharp, long nails, and 
 the pain did her good. She could have dashed 
 her head against the wall. She would gladly 
 have stripped her shoulders to the lash, if — if it 
 would do any good. She would kill herself, for 
 the matter of that, but what would that prevent 
 or remedy? The church was not far off, per- 
 haps a miracle ! But what miracle can avert the 
 
Monsieur Motte. 43 
 
 inevitable? She shoved her empty basket under 
 the bed and went out upon the covered gallery 
 that spanned the garden and led to Madame 
 Lareveillere's bedchamber. 
 
 The quadrangle lay half overspread now by 
 shadow. The gay insouciante flowers moved 
 gently in an incipient breeze, the umbrella top 
 of the little summer-house warded the rays from 
 the benches beneath, and kept them cool and 
 pleasant. , Her own face was not more familiar, 
 more matter-of-fact to Marcelite, and yet she 
 saw in the yard things she had never remarked 
 before. There was a different expression to it 
 all. Flowers, summer-house, even the gray 
 flags, depressed her and made her sad ; as if 
 they, or she, were going to die soon. She caught 
 the balustrade in her hand, but it was not vertigo. 
 What was it, then, that made her feel so unnatu- 
 ral and everything so portentous? This morning, 
 life was so comfortable and small, everything 
 just under her hand. She was mistress of every 
 day, and night was the truce, if not the end of all 
 trouble. But to-day had united itself to past 
 and future in such a way that night was but a 
 transparent veil that separated but could not 
 
44 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 isolate them one from the other. [ Time was in 
 revolt against her; her own powers betrayed 
 her; flight was impossible, resistance useless, 
 death, even, futile. ) 
 
 What was the matter with her head, any- 
 how? She _ jnust be voudoued. If she could 
 only feel as she did this morning ! The slat- 
 ternly Jeanne shuffled underneath on her way to 
 the bell, an augur of ill-omen. She would go 
 and see Madame Lareveillere. 
 
 Madame (as she was commonly called) sat at 
 her secretaire writing. Her pen, fine pointed as 
 a cambric needle, scratched under her fingers as 
 if it worked on steel instead of paper. She was 
 very busy, transferring the names from a list 
 before her into the gilt-edged prize-books piled 
 up in glowing heaps all around her. A strict 
 observer would have noticed many inaccuracies 
 which would have invalidated any claim to cor- 
 rectness on the part of her copy. There were 
 not only liberties taken with the prize itself, but 
 entire names were involved in transactions which 
 the original list by no means warranted. These 
 inaccuracies always occurred after consultation 
 of another list kept in Madame's little drawer, 
 
Monsieur Motte. 45 
 
 — a list whose columns carried decimals in- 
 stead of good and bad marks for' lessons. A 
 single ray of light, filtered through various 
 intermedial shades and curtains, had been ma- 
 noeuvred so as to fall on the small desk at a safe 
 distance from Madame's sensitive complexion. 
 At difficult calculations, she would screw up her 
 eyes and peer at both lists brought into the 
 focus of illumination, then would sink back into 
 obscurity for advisory reflection. 
 
 There are so many calculations to be made, 
 so many fine distinctions drawn, in a distribution 
 of prizes ! No one but a schoolmistress knows 
 the mental effort requisite for the working out 
 of an equation which sets good and bad scholars - 
 against good and bad pay. Why could not the 
 rich girls study more, or the poor less? Oh, 
 the simple beauty of strict, injudicious impar- 
 tiality ! Cursed be the inventor or originator 
 of these annual rehearsals, where every one was 
 rewarded except the rewarder ! 
 
 On occasions like these any interruption is a 
 deliverance ; Madame heard with glad alacrity a 
 knock at the door. 
 
 " Ah! c'est toi, Marcelite ! " 
 
46 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 Marcelite represented another matter of yearly 
 consideration, another question of paramount 
 importance, a suspensive judgment, involving, 
 however, Madame alone. With the assistance of 
 the hairdresser, many years ago (the date is not 
 essential, and women are sensitive about such 
 things), the principal of the Institut St. Denis 
 had engaged in (one of those struggles against 
 Time to which pretty unmarried women seem 
 pledged during a certain period, the fighting age, 
 of their lives. It was purely a defensive struggle 
 on her part, and consisted in a protest against 
 that uglifying process by which women are 
 coaxed into resignation to old age and death. 
 So far, she had maintained her own perfectly; 
 and Time, for all the progress he had made in 
 the sweet, delicate face of Eugenie Lareveillere, 
 might just as well have been tied for ten years 
 t past to one of the four posts of the bedstead. 
 The musical concert and distribution of prizes 
 and its consequent indispensable new toilette 
 furnished an excellent date for an annual review 
 and consultation, when old measures were dis- 
 cussed, new ones adopted, and the next cam- 
 paign planned. Madame, however, did not feel 
 
Monsieur Motte. 47 
 
 this year the same buoyant courage, the same 
 irrepressible audacity as heretofore. In fact, 
 there was a vague suspicion in her breast, hith- 
 erto unacknowledged, that in spite of facial 
 evidence she herself, dans son interieur, was be- 
 ginning to grow the least, little, tiny bit old. 
 She felt like capitulating with the enemy, and 
 had almost made up her mind to surrender — 
 her hair. " V incertitude est le pire des maux, 
 jusqiiau moment ou la realite nous fait regretter 
 V incertitude ." Should the conditions be proven 
 too hard for mortal beauty, she could at least re- 
 volt again. Thank heaven ! over there in Paris 
 worked devoted emissaries for women, and the 
 last word had not yet been said by the artists of 
 hair-dyes and cosmetics. 
 
 "Eh, bien, qu'en dis-tu, Marcelite?" 
 The artistically arranged head, with its curls 
 and puffs and frisettes clustered like brown 
 silken flowers above the fair skin, was directly 
 in the line of Marcelite's vision. Who would 
 have suspected that these were but transplanted 
 exotics from the hot head of foreign youth? that 
 under their adorning luxuriance lay, fastened by 
 inflexible hairpins, the legitimate but deposed 
 
48 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 possessors of this crown? But they were old, 
 gray, almost white, and Madame was suggest- 
 ing for them a temporary and empirical resur- 
 rection. That head which daily for years she 
 J had moulded according to her comprehension 
 of fashion ; that inert little ball for which Mar- 
 celite, in her superb physical strength, had al- 
 most felt a contempt, — she looked at it now, and, 
 like the flowers in the garden, it was changed 
 to her, was pregnant with subtle, portentous 
 meaning. She was beginning faintly to suspect 
 the truth. All this buzzing, whirling, thought, 
 fear, calculation, retrospection, and prevision, 
 which had come into her great, big, strong head 
 only an hour ago, had been going on in this 
 little, fragile, delicate handful of skull for years, 
 ever since it was born. She saw it now, she 
 knew it, — the difference between Madame's head 
 and hers, between a consciousness limited by 
 eternity and one limited by a nightly 'sleep, be- 
 tween an intelligence looking into immortality 
 and one looking into the eyes of a confessor. 
 
 The room would have been quite dark but 
 for that one useful ray which, after enlightening 
 the path of distributive justice for Madame, fell 
 
Monsieur Motte. 49 
 
 on and was absorbed by a picture opposite. 
 Out of the obscurity arose one by one the fea- 
 tures of the bedchamber, — I the supreme model of 
 bedchambers in the opinion of the impressiona- 
 ble loyalists of St. Denis ; a bedchamber, the 
 luxury of which could never be surpassed, the 
 mysterious solemnity never equalled ; a bed- 
 chamber, in fact, created to satisfy the majestic 
 coquettishness of the autocratic superior of an 
 aristocratic school for girls. 
 
 Indistinct, undefined, vague fragments of color 
 struggled up through the floor of sombre carpet. 
 The windows, made to exclude the light, were 
 draped with mantles of lace and silk hanging from 
 gigantic, massive, convoluted gilt cornices. The 
 grand four-posted mahogany bedstead, with its 
 rigging of mosquito-netting and cords and tassels, 
 looked like some huge vessel that by accident 
 had lodged in this small harbor. So stupen- 
 dous, so immeasurable, so gloomily, grandly, 
 majestically imposing, this dark, crimson-housed 
 bedstead looked in the small, dimly-lighted 
 room, that little girls sent on occasional mes- \ 
 sages to Madame felt a tremor of awe at the 
 sight of it, and understood instinctively, without 
 4 
 
50 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 need of explanation or elucidation, that here, 
 indeed, was one of those lits de justice which 
 caused such dismay in the pages of their French 
 history. The bureau with its laces and ribbons, 
 its cushions, essence-bottles, jewel-cases, vide- 
 podies, and little galleried etageres full of gay 
 reflections for the mirror underneath, was as 
 coquettish, as volatile, as petulant an article of 
 furniture as was ever condemned to bedchamber 
 companionship with a lit de justice. 
 
 The prie-dieu in front of the altar granted the 
 occupant an encouraging view into all the visi- 
 ble appliances for stimulating faith in the things 
 not seen. The willing heart, as by an ascending 
 scale, rose insensibly from the humanity to the 
 divinity of sacrifice and suffering: reliquaries, 
 triply consecrated beads, palms, and crucifixes, 
 pictures of sainted martyrs and martyresses 
 (who contradicted the fallacious coincidence of 
 homeliness and virtue), statuettes, prayer-books, 
 pendent flasks of holy water, and an ecclesiasti- 
 cal flask of still holier liquid, impregnated with 
 miraculous promises. A taper, in a red globe, 
 burned with subdued effulgence below it all. 
 Ghastly white and black bead wreaths, hanging 
 
Monsieur Motte. 51 
 
 under faded miniatures, set the bounds of mural 
 consecration, and kept Madame mournfully re- 
 minded of her deceased husband and mother. 
 
 Marcelite sto od, like a threatening idol, in the 
 centre of thejroom, her eyes glaring through 
 the gloom with fierce doggedness. Her feet 
 were planted firmly apart, her hands doubled 
 up on her high, round, massive hips. The cords 
 of her short, thick neck stood out, and her 
 broad, flexible nostrils rose and fell with pas- 
 sion. Her untamed African blood was in re- 
 bellion against the religion and civilization whose 
 symbols were_ all about her in that dim and 
 stately chamber, — a civilization which had tarn- ^' 
 pered with her brain, had enervated her will, 
 and had duped her with false assurances of her 
 own capability. 
 
 She felt a crushing desire to tear down, split, 
 destroy, to surroun d her self with ruins, to anni- 
 hila te th e miserable little weak devices of in- 
 telligence, and reassert the proud supremacy of 
 brute force. She longed to humiliate that meek 
 Virgin Mother ; and if the form on the crucifix 
 had been alive she would have gloated over his 
 blood and agony. She thirsted to get her thin, 
 
$2 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 taper, steel-like ringers but once more on that 
 pretty, shapely, glossy head. 
 
 " Paitvre petite chatte ! I shall miss her very 
 much ; you know, Marcelite, it seems only a 
 year or two since you brought her here a little 
 baby, and now she is a young lady of seven- 
 teen. Thirteen years ago ! What a chetive little 
 thing she was ! You were as much of a scholar 
 here then as she ; you had to stay with her so 
 much. 'yYou have been a faithful nurse to her, 
 ma bonne femme. A mother could not have 
 been more devoted, and very few would have 
 done all you have for that child. Ah ! that 's 
 a thing money can never pay for, — love. I 
 hope Marie will always remember what you 
 have been to her, and repay it with affection. 
 But she will; she is a good girl, — a good, 
 good girl, paitvre petite ! It is Monsieur Motte, 
 though, who should give you a handsome pres- 
 ent, something really valuable. I would like to 
 know what he would have done for a bonne 
 for his niece without you. You remember that 
 summer when she had the fever? Eh, well, she 
 would have died but for you ; I shall never 
 forget her sad little face and her big black 
 
Monsieur Motte. 53 
 
 eyes. You know, her mother must see all that ; 
 I can never believe, Marcelite, that a mother 
 cannot come back, sometimes, to see her chil- 
 dren, particularly a little girl — " 
 
 Marcelite listened with head averted. Her 
 hands had fallen from her hips, her mouth 
 slowly relaxed, and the lips opened moist and 
 red. As if drawn by strains of music, she came 
 nearer and nearer Madame's chair. 
 
 " She was always such a quiet little thing, ma 
 foi ! " Madame's reminiscence was an endless 
 chain. " I used to forget her entirely; but now 
 she is going away, I know I shall miss her, yes, 
 very much. I hope the world will be kind to 
 her. She will be handsome, too, some day, 
 when she does not have to study so hard, and 
 can enjoy the diversions of society a little. By 
 the time she is twenty you will see she will be 
 line belle femme. Ah, Monsieur Motte, you will 
 be satisfied, allez ! " 
 
 The little pen commenced scratching away 
 again, and this time registered the deed of prize 
 of French history to I'e'leve, Marie Modeste 
 Motte. 
 
 Marcelite, with wistful eyes, listened for some 
 
54 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 more of the soft, sweet tones. She made the 
 movement of swallowing two or three times to 
 get the swelling and stiffness out of her throat. 
 
 " Mamzelle Marie, too, she will be sorry to 
 leave Madame." Her voice was thick and 
 unsteady. 
 
 " Oh no, girls are always glad to quit school. 
 Very naturally, too. When one is young, one 
 does not like to stay indoors and study, when 
 there is so much outside, — dancing, music, 
 beaux." A sigh interrupted Madame. " It is 
 all past for me now, but I can recollect how 
 I felt when I was seventeen. Apropos, Mar- 
 celite, did you give my invitation to Monsieur 
 Motte?" 
 
 " Yes, Madame." 
 
 The answer came after an interval of hesita- 
 tion. At one moment Marcelite's eyes flashed 
 as if she would brave all results and refuse to 
 respond. 
 
 " And what did he say? " 
 
 " He — he sent his compliments to Madame." 
 
 Madame looked around to see what the good- 
 natured coiffeuse meant by such sullen tones. 
 "Yes; but did he say he would come to 
 
Monsieur Motte. 55 
 
 the concert? I wanted particularly to know 
 that." 
 
 " He is so old, Madame." 
 
 "La, Id, the same old excuse! I am so 
 tired of it." 
 
 " But when one is old, Madame." 
 
 " Ah, bah ! I do not believe he is too old for 
 his own pleasure. I know men ; old age is a x i 
 very convenient excuse at times." 
 
 Marcelite appeared to have no reply at the 
 end of her ready tongue. 
 
 " But this time he must come, par exemple! 
 even if he is so old. I think he might subject 
 himself to some little inconvenience and trouble 
 to see his niece graduate, k He has not put him- 
 self out much about her for twelve or thirteen 
 years." 
 
 " God knows ! Madame."'' 
 
 " God knows? Mais, Marcelite, how silly you 
 talk ! Don't you see that Monsjeur Motte must 
 c ome to-morrow night, at least to take Marie 
 home? God does know, and so should he." 
 
 Marcelite spoke as if galvanized by an in- 
 spiration. " Perhaps he wants Miss Marie to 
 stay another year, Madame ; you see, she is so 
 
56 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 young, and — and — there is so much to learn, 
 en fin!' 
 
 " He wa nts that, does he ? he wants that ! Ah, 
 Ve goist e! T ha t is l ike a man ; oh, I know them, 
 like a b c. No, if Marie is not too young to 
 graduate, she is not too young to leave school ; 
 and besides, if she had not learned everything, 
 how could she graduate? There is an end to 
 learning, enfin. You tell Monsieur Motte that. 
 But no, Hens., it is better I shall write it." 
 
 She seized some note-paper and put her mes- 
 sage in writing with the customary epistolary 
 embellishment of phrase at the expense of sin- 
 cerity and truth. 
 
 " I hope he will be kind to her, and look out 
 for a good parti for her. Of course she will 
 have a dot, — his only relative. Did you not tell 
 me she was his only relative, Marcelite? He 
 has absolutely no one else besides her?" 
 
 "No, Madame." 
 
 "Well, then, she will get it all when he dies, 
 unless" — with a shrug — "I do not know; one 
 is never sure about men." 
 
 Madame bethought herself of the time, and 
 looked at her watch just as Marcelite, by a sud- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 57 
 
 den resolution, made a desperate movement to- 
 wards her. 
 
 " Nearly three o'clock ! I must go and make 
 my tour. An revoir, ma bonne. Be sure and 
 give Monsieur Motte my note, and come early 
 to-morrow morning; and do not forget to think 
 about what I told you, you know." She tapped 
 her head significantly and left the room. On 
 the short passage to the Salle des Classes she 
 "put off her natural manner, and assumed the 
 conventional disguise supposed to be more fit- 
 ting her high position. When the door opened 
 and the little girls started up to drop their courte- 
 sies, and their " Je vons salnc, Madame" her 
 stately tread and severe mien could hardly have 
 been distinguished from those of her predeces- 
 sor, the aristocratic old refugee from the Island 
 of St. Domingo. 
 
 After dinner, when the shadow had entirely 
 enveloped the yard, and the fragrance of the 
 oleander and jasmine had fastened itself on 
 the air, the girls were allowed their evening 
 recreation. Relieved from the more or less 
 restraining presence of the day scholars, the 
 boarders promenaded in the cordial intimacy of 
 
58 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 home life. The laughter of the children in the 
 street, the music of the organs (there seemed 
 to be one at each corner), the gay jingle of the 
 ice-cream cart came over the wall to them. To- 
 morrow there would be no wall between them 
 and the world, — the great, gay, big world of New 
 Orleans. ) The thought was too exhilarating for 
 their fresh blood ; they danced to the music and 
 laughed to the laughter outside, they kissed their 
 hands to invisible friends, and made reverences 
 and complimentary speeches to the crescent 
 moon up in the blue sky. The future would 
 soon be here now ! only to-morrow evening, — 
 the future, which held for them a debut in soci- 
 ety, a box at the opera, beautiful toilettes, balls, 
 dancing, music. No more study, routine, ex- 
 aminations, scoldings, punishments, and bread- 
 and-butter lunches. The very idea of it was 
 intoxicating, and each girl felt guilty of a maud- 
 lin effusion of sentiment and nonsense to her 
 best friend. A " best friend " is an institution 
 in every girls' school. Every class-book when 
 opened would direct you to a certain page on 
 which was to be found the name of " celle que 
 faime," or " celle que f adore" or " mon amie 
 
Monsieur Motte. 59 
 
 cherie," or " ma toute devouee." The only 
 source of scandal that flourished in their se- 
 cluded circle was the formation or disrupting 
 of these ties through the intermeddling offi- 
 ciousness of " rapporteuses " and " mauvaises 
 langues" But the approaching dissolution of 
 all ties drew them together, each one to each 
 one's best friend, and, as usual, the vows ex- 
 changed became more fervent and passionate 
 just before breaking. Marcelite was outside, 
 leaning against the wall. Close over her head 
 hung the pink oleanders through their green 
 leaves, and on their strong perfume was wafted 
 the merry voices of the boarders. How glad, 
 how happy they were ! She could hear her 
 bebe above the others, and, strange to say, her 
 laughter made her sadder even than her tears 
 to-day. She lifted up her black, passionate face. 
 If she could only see them ! if she could look 
 over the wall and catch one more glimpse of the 
 girl whom as a baby she had held to her bosom, 
 and whom she had carried in her arms through 
 that gate when ..." Ah, mon Dicu, ayez pitie 
 de moi, pauvre negresse! " 
 
 " Dansez, ckantez," they were singing and 
 
60 Monsieur Motfe. 
 
 making a ronde. She heard some one at the gate, 
 — Jeanne, probably, coming out. She turned 
 her back quickly and walked away around the 
 corner, making the tour of the square. When 
 she turned the corner coming the other way, 
 she was quite out of breath with walking so 
 fast ; as there was no one in the street, she in- 
 creased her pace to a run, and reached the 
 oleanders panting; but all was now still inside; 
 the boarders had been summoned to supper. 
 She stretched her arms out and leaned her head 
 against the rough bricks. She turned and looked 
 at the sky ; her eyes gleamed through her tears 
 like the hot stars through the blue air. She 
 moved away a few steps, hesitated, returned ; 
 then went again, only to be drawn back under 
 the oleanders. She sat down close to the wall, 
 threw her apron over her head, and drew her 
 feet up out of the way of the passers-by. 
 
 Daylight found her still there. When the 
 early carts began to pass, laden for the neigh- 
 boring market, she rose stiff and sore and 
 walked in the direction of the river, where the 
 morning breeze was just beginning to ripple 
 the waters and drive away the fog. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 61 
 
 The great day of the concert began very 
 early. Fete days always get up before the 
 sun. The boarders in the dormitory raised 
 their heads from their pillows and listened to 
 the pushing and dragging going on underneath 
 them : the men arranging the chairs for that 
 night. Their heads, done up in white paper 
 papillotcs, looked like so many blanched por- 
 cupines. This was one of the first of those 
 innumerable degrees of preparation by which 
 they expected to transform themselves into 
 houris of loveliness by concert-time. As there 
 can be no beauty without curls, in a school- 
 girl's opinion, and as a woman's first duty is 
 to be beautiful, they felt called upon to roll 
 lock after lock of their hair around white oaper, 
 which was then twisted to the utmost limit of 
 endurance; and on occasions when tightness 
 of curl is regulated by tightness of twist, en- 
 durance may safely be said to have no limits. 
 Fear of the unavoidable ensuing disappointment 
 forced Marie to renounce, reluctantly, beauty in 
 .favor of discretion. When her companions saw 
 the omission, they screamed in dismay. 
 
 "Oh, Marie!" 
 
62 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 "Ah! Why didn't you put your hair up?" 
 
 " What a pity ! " 
 
 "And you won't have curls for this evening?" 
 
 " Do it now ! " 
 
 " Mais je f assure, it will curl almost as tight." 
 
 " Let me do it for you, eliere." 
 
 "No, me." 
 
 " But it is better to have it a little frisi, than 
 straight, so." 
 
 Marie, from practice accomplished in ex- 
 cuses, persisted that she had a migraine. 
 
 " Oh, la migraine, poor thing ! " 
 
 " I implore you, don't be ill to-night." 
 
 " Try my can de Cologne." 
 
 " No, my can sedative is better." 
 
 " Put this on your head." 
 
 "Tie this around your neck." 
 
 " Carry this in your pocket." 
 
 " Some water from Notre Dame de Lourdes." 
 
 " Some smelling-salts." 
 
 Madame Lareveillere opened her eyes that 
 morning as from an unsuccessful experiment. 
 She cared little about sleep as a restorative, 
 
Monsieur Motte. 63 
 
 but it was invaluable to her in this emergency 
 as a cosmetic. 
 
 Jeanne brought in her morning cup of coffee, 
 with the news that the men had almost finished 
 in the Salle de Concert. 
 
 " C'est bon ; tell Marcelite to come as soon j 
 as she is ready." 
 
 The eyes closed again on the pillow in ex- 
 pectation of speedy interruption. But sleep, 
 the coquette, courted and coaxed in vain all 
 night, came now with blandishment, lullaby, 
 and soft caress, and fastened the already heavy 
 lids down over the brown eyes, and carried 
 the occupant of the big bed away out on pretty 
 dreams of youth and pleasure ; away, beyond 
 all distractions, noises, interruptions ; beyond 
 the reach of matutinal habits, duties, engage- 
 ments, rehearsals, prizes ; beyond even the 
 practising of the " Clicval de Bronze" on four 
 pianos just underneath her. She slept as peo- 
 ple sleep only on the field of battle or amid 
 the ruins of broken promises ; and thanks to 
 her exalted position, she slept undisturbed. 
 
 " Mais, come in done, Marcelite ! " she ex- 
 claimed, as a perseverant knocking at the door 
 
64 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 for the past five minutes had the effect of 
 balancing her in a state of uncertain wake- 
 fulness. "You are a little early this morning, 
 it seems." 
 
 She rubbed her hands very softly over her 
 still-closed eyes ; that last dream was so sweet, 
 so clinging, what a pity to open them ! 
 
 "It is not Marcelite; it is I, — Madame 
 Joubert." 
 1 "You! Madame Joubert!" 
 \ The excellent, punctilious, cold, austere, in- 
 flexible French teacher by her bedside ! 
 
 " I thought it was Marcelite." 
 
 She still was hardly awake. 
 
 " No, it is I." 
 
 " But what is the matter, Madame Joubert? " 
 
 " It is twelve o'clock, Madame." 
 
 " Twelve o'clock ! Impossible ! " 
 
 " You hear it ringing, Madame." 
 
 " But where is Marcelite? " 
 
 " Marcelite did not come this morning." 
 
 "Marcelite did not come this morning! " 
 She was again going to say " Impossible ! " but 
 she perceived Madame Joubert's head, and was 
 silent. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 65 
 
 Instead of her characteristic, formal, but con- 
 ventionally fashionable coiffure, Madame Jou- 
 bert had returned to, or assumed, that most 
 primitive and innocent way of combing her 
 hair, called la sauvagesse. Unrelieved by the 
 soft perspective of Marcelite's handiwork, 
 her plain, prominent features stood out with 
 the savage boldness of rocks on a shrubless 
 beach. "How frightfully ugly! " thought 
 Madame Lareveillere. 
 
 " Marcelite did not come this morning ? 
 WhyT" 
 
 "How should I know, Madame?" 
 
 " She must be ill ; send Jeanne to see." 
 
 " I did that, Madame, five hours ago ; she was 
 not in her room." 
 
 " But what can have become of her? " 
 
 Madame Joubert had early in life eliminated 
 the consideration of supposititious cases from 
 the catalogue of her salaried duties ; but she 
 answered gratuitously, — 
 
 " I cannot imagine, Madame." 
 
 " But I must have some one to comb my 
 hair." 
 
 " The music-teacher is waiting for you. The 
 5 
 
66 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 French professor says he will be here again in 
 a half-hour; he has been here twice already. 
 Madame Criard says that it is indispensable for 
 her to consult you about the choruses." 
 
 "Mais, mon Dieu / Madame Joubert, I must 
 have a hairdresser ! " 
 
 Madame Joubert waived all participation in 
 this responsibility by continuing her commu- 
 nication. 
 
 " The girls are all very tired ; they say they 
 will be worn out by to-night if they are kept 
 much longer. They have been up ever since 
 six o'clock." 
 
 " I know, I know, Madame Joubert; it was an 
 accident. I also was awake at six o'clock, jf'ai 
 fait la unit blanche. Then I fell asleep again. 
 Ah ! that miserable Marcelite ! I beg of you, 
 tell Jeanne to go for some one, no matter 
 whom — Henriette, Julie, Artemise. I shall be 
 ready in a moment." 
 
 In a surprisingly short while she was quite 
 ready, all but her hair, and stood in her white 
 muslin peignoir, tied with blue ribbons, before 
 her toilette, waiting impatiently for some one 
 to come to her assistance. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 67 
 
 How terrible it is not to be able to comb one's N 
 own hair ! Her hands had grown completely 
 unaccustomed to the exercise of the comb and 
 brush. 
 
 " Madame," said Jeanne at the door, " I have 
 been everywhere. I cannot find a hairdresser at 
 home; I have left word at several places, and 
 Madame Joubert says they are waiting for 
 you." 
 
 What could she do? She looked in the glass 
 at her gray, spare locks ; she looked on her 
 toilette at her beautiful brown curls and plaits. 
 " How in the world did Marcelite manage to 
 secure all that on this ? " 
 
 There was a knock at the door. 
 
 " Perhaps that was a hairdresser!" She has- 
 tened to unfasten it. 
 
 " Madame," said a little girl, trying to speak 
 distinctly, despite a nervous shortness of breath, 
 " Madame Joubert sent me to tell you they 
 were waiting." 
 
 " Very well, mon enfant, very well. I am 
 coming." 
 
 " I shall be a greater fright than Madame ] 
 Joubert," she murmured to herself. 
 
68 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 The drops of perspiration disfiguring the clear 
 tissue of the muslin peignoir were the only visi- 
 ble results of her conscientious efforts. 
 
 " I will never be able to fix my hair." 
 
 There was another knock at the door, another 
 " Madame Joubert vous fait dire" etc. 
 
 " Tell Madame Joubert I am coming in a 
 moment." 
 
 How impatient Madame Joubert was this 
 morning. Oh for Marcelite ! 
 
 She knew nothing about hair, that was evident ; 
 but she remembered that she knew something 
 about lace. Under the pressure of accelerating 
 summonses from Madame Joubert, she fashioned 
 a fichu, left on a chair from last night, into a 
 very presentable substitute for curls and puffs. 
 
 " Mais ce 11 est pas mat, en effet" she mut- 
 tered. Hearing the sound of footsteps again 
 in the corridor, she rushed from the mirror and 
 met the messenger just as her hand was poised 
 to give a knock at the door. The " Sa . . . 
 lu . . . t! mois de va . . . can . . . ces/" and 
 the " Vi . . . er . . . ge, Ma . . . ri . . . e " had 
 been chorused and re-chorused; the " Cheval 
 de Bronze" had been hammered into durable 
 
Monsieur Motte. 69 
 
 perfection ; the solos and duos, dialogues and 
 scenes, the salutatory and valedictory had been 
 rehearsed ad nauseam. 
 
 Madame finally dismissed the tired actors, 
 with the recommendation to collect all their 
 petites affaires, so that their trunks could be 
 sent away very early the next morning. 
 
 " I suppose Marcelite will be sure to come 
 this evening? " she asked Madame Joubert. 
 
 " Oh, that is sure, Madame," Madame Joubert 
 replied, as if this were one of the few rules of life 
 without exceptions ; and Madame Lareveillere 
 believed her as confidently as if Noel and 
 Chapsal had passed upon her answer, and the 
 Dictionnaire de V Acade'mie had indorsed it. 
 
 The girls scattered themselves all over the 
 school, effacing with cheerful industry every 
 trace of their passage through the desert of edu- 
 cation. " Dieu merci! that was all past." Marie 
 had emptied her desk of everything belonging 
 to her except her name, dug out of the black 
 lid with a dull knife. That had to remain, with 
 a good many other Marie Modeste Mottes on 
 the different desks that had harbored her books 
 during her sojourn in the various classes. This 
 
yo Monsieur Motte. 
 
 was all that would be left of her in the rooms 
 where she had passed thirteen years of her life. 
 The vacant teacher's desk, the throne of so 
 many tyrants (the English teachers were all 
 hateful!); the white walls with their ugly pro- 
 tecting dado of black; the rows of pegs, where 
 the hats and cloaks hung; the white marble 
 mantel, with its carving of naked cherubs, which 
 the stove had discreetly clothed in soot, — she 
 could never forget them. Sitting in her future 
 home, the house of her uncle, she knew that 
 these homely objects would come to her mem- 
 ory, as through sunset clouds of rose and 
 gold. 
 
 " What will you do when you quit school, 
 Marie? " her companions would ask, after de- 
 tailing with ostentatious prolixity their own 
 pleasant prospects. 
 
 " Ah, you know that depends entirely upon 
 my uncle," she would reply, shrugging her thin 
 shoulders under her calico waist. 
 
 This rich old uncle, an obstinate recluse, was 
 the traditional le vieux of the school. 
 
 "How is le vieux to-day?" they would call 
 to Marcelite. 
 
Monsieur Motte. yi 
 
 " Give my love to le vieux." 
 
 " Dis done, why does n't le vieux take Marie 
 away in the summer? " 
 
 " Did you see the beautiful etrennes le vieux 
 has sent Marie? " 
 
 " They say he has sent her a superb toilette 
 for the exhibition, made at Madame Treize's, 
 and white satin boots." 
 
 Her trunk had been brought down with 
 the others, and placed at her bedside. What 
 more credible witness than a coffin or a trunk? 
 It stood there as it might have stood thirteen 
 years ago, when her baby wardrobe was un- 
 packed. Her dear, ugly, little, old trunk ! It 
 had belonged to her mother, and bore three 
 faded M's on its leather skin. She leaned her 
 head against the top as she knelt on the floor 
 before it to pack her books. How much that 
 trunk could tell her if it could only speak ! If 
 she were as old as that trunk, she would have 
 known a father, a mother, and a home ! She 
 wrinkled her forehead in a concentrated effort 
 to think a little farther back ; to push her mem- 
 ory just a little, — a little beyond that mist out 
 of which it arose. In vain ! The big bell at the 
 
72 Monsieur Matte. 
 
 gate, with its clanging orders, remained the 
 boundary of consciousness. 
 
 And Marcelite did not come, not even when 
 the lamps were lighted, to comb their hair, 
 - fasten their dresses, and tie their sashes ; did 
 not even come at the very end to see how their 
 toilettes became them. The young ladies had 
 waited until the last moment, dressed to the last 
 pin, taken their hair out of the last papillote, 
 and then looked at one another in despair, 
 indignation, and grief. 
 
 " Just look at my head, I ask you ! " 
 
 " But mine is worse than yours." 
 
 " I shall never be able to do anything with 
 mine." 
 
 " The more I brush, the more like a negre I 
 look." 
 
 " Ah, Marie, how wise you were not to put 
 your hair in papillotcs!" 
 
 " And all that trouble for nothing, hein! " 
 
 " And the pain." 
 
 " I did n't sleep a wink last night." 
 
 " See how nice Marie looks with her hair 
 smoothly plaited." 
 
 " I will never forgive Marcelite." 
 
Monsieur Motte. 71 
 
 " Nor I." 
 
 "Nor I." 
 
 "Nor I." 
 
 Marie's heart sank when she thought how 
 difficult it would be for Marcelite to efface this 
 disappointment from the remembrance of her 
 _ clients ; and 1 she felt guilty, as being in a 
 measure responsible for it all. Marcelite was 
 evidently detained, or prevented from com- 
 ing, by preparations for Marie's return. Who 
 knows? — perhaps the eccentric old uncle had 
 something to do with it ! Madame Joubert posi- 
 tively refused to mitigate the injury or condone 
 the offence by the employment of another hair- 
 dresser. As she had commenced, so she closed 
 the day a la sauvagesse ; and so she determined 
 to wear her hair to the end of her life, maintain- 
 ing, logically, that what one hairdresser had 
 done, all were liable to do ; life should never 
 serve this disappointment to her a second time : 
 she would employ no more of them. 
 
 The being deserted in a critical moment by 
 a trusted servitor, dropped without warning by 
 a confidante, left with an indifference, which 
 amounted to heartlessness, to the prying eyes 
 
74 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 and gossiping tongue of a stranger, — this, not 
 the mere trivial combing, was what isolated and 
 distinguished Madame Lareveillere in her afflic- 
 tion. The question had been lifted beyond 
 material consequences. Morally, it approached 
 tragic seriousness. Marcelite would naturally 
 have suggested, whether she thought so or not, 
 that the color of the new gray mo ire- antique 
 was a trifle ingratc, and Madame at least might 
 have had the merit of declining propitiatory 
 compromises between it and her complexion. 
 . . . Julie was an idiot, there was no doubt 
 about that; and the length of her tongue was 
 notorious. By to-morrow evening the delicate 
 mysteries of the youthful-looking Madame 
 Lareveillere's toilette would be unveiled to sat- 
 isfy the sensational cravings of her malicious 
 patronesses. 
 
 The young ladies were placed on a high 
 platform of steps, and rose tier above tier like 
 flowers in a horticultural show, — the upper 
 classes at the top and the best-looking girls 
 well in the centre, as if the product of their 
 beauty as well as their study went to the credit 
 of the institute. When anything particular 
 
Monsieur Motte. 7$ 
 
 arrested their attention they whispered behind 
 their fans, and it was as if a hive of bees had 
 been let loose ; when they laughed it was like 
 a cascade rippling from step to step ; when 
 they opened their white, blue, and rose-colored 
 fans (school-girls always do the same thing at 
 the same time) and fluttered them, then it was 
 like a cloud of butterflies hovering and coquet- 
 ting about their own lips. 
 
 The Extcrncs were radiant in toilettes un- 
 marred by accident or omission; the flattering 
 compliments of their mirrors at home had 
 turned their heads in the direction of perfect 
 self-content. Resignation was the only equiva- 
 lent the unfortunate Internes could offer in 
 extenuation of the unfinished appearance of 
 their heads. 
 
 " Mais, dis done, ckere, what is the matter 
 with your hair? " 
 
 " Marcelite did not come." 
 
 " Why, doudouce, how could you allow your 
 hair to be combed that way? " 
 
 " Marcelite did not come." 
 
 " CJierie, I think your hair is curled a little 
 tight this evening.''" 
 
y6 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " I should think so ; that diable Marcelite did 
 not come." 
 
 " Mon Dicu, look at Madame Joubert a la 
 sauvagesse! " 
 
 " And Madame a la grand maman ! " 
 " Marcelite did not come, you see." 
 Not only was the room filled, but an eager 
 audience crowded the yard and peeped in 
 through the windows. The stairways, of 
 course, were filled with the colored servants, 
 an enthusiastic, irrepressible claque. When it 
 was all over, and the last bis and encore had 
 subsided, row after row of girls was gleaned by 
 the parents, proud possessors of such shawlfuls 
 of beauty, talent, and prizes. Marie's class, the 
 last to leave, were picked off one by one. She 
 helped the others to put on their wraps, gather 
 up their prizes, and kissed one after another 
 good-by. 
 
 / Each man that came up was, by a glance, 
 measured and compared with her imaginary 
 standard. " He is too young." " He is too 
 fat." " I hope he is not that cross-looking 
 one." " Maybe it is he." " What a funny 
 little one that is! " "Ah, he is very nice-look- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 77 
 
 ing!" "Is it he?" "No, he is Corinne's 
 father." " I feel sure he is that ugly, disagree- 
 able one." "Ah, here he is at last! at last! " 
 "No; he only came to say good-night to 
 Madame." " He is afraid of the crowd." " He 
 is waiting outside." " He is at the gate in a 
 carriage." "After all, he has only sent Mar- 
 celite." " I saw her here on the steps a while 
 ago." She looked at the steps, they were de- 
 serted. There was but one person left in the 
 room besides herself; Madame and her suite had 
 gone to partake of their yearly exhibitional re- 
 freshments, — lemonade and massc-pain, served 
 in the little parlor. Her uncle must be that 
 man. The person walked out after finding a 
 fan he had returned to seek. 
 
 She remained standing so by the piano a long 
 while, her gold crown on her head, her prizes 
 in her arms, and a light shawl she had thought- 
 fully provided to wear home. Home ! She 
 looked all around very slowly once more. She 
 heard Jeanne crossing the yard, but before the 
 servant could enter the door, the white muslin 
 dress, blue sash, and satin boots had bounded 
 into the darkness of the stairwav. The white- 
 
78 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 veiled beds which the night before had nestled 
 the gay papillotted heads were deserted and 
 silent in the darkness. What a shelter the dark- 
 ness was ! She caught hold of the bedpost, 
 not thinking, but feeling. Then Madame Jou- 
 bert came tripping across the gallery with a 
 candle, on her way to bed. The prizes and 
 shawl dropped to the floor, and Marie crouched 
 down close behind the bar. " Oh, God," she 
 prayed, " keep her from seeing me ! " The 
 teacher after a pause of reflection passed on to 
 her room ; the child on the floor gave herself 
 up to the full grief of a disappointment which 
 was not childish in its bitterness. The events 
 of the evening kept slipping away from her 
 while the contents of her previous life were 
 poured out with never-ending detail, and as they 
 lay there, before and all around her, she saw 
 for the first time how bare, how denuded, of 
 pleasure and comfort it had been. What had 
 her weak little body not endured in patient igno- 
 rance? But the others were not ignorant, — 
 the teachers, Marcelite, her uncle ! How had 
 they imposed upon the orphan in their hands ! 
 She saw it now, and she felt a woman's indigna- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 79 
 
 tion and pity over it. The maternal instinct in 
 her bosom was roused by the contemplation of 
 her own infancy. " Marcelite ! Marcelite! 3 ' she 
 called out, " how could you? for you knew, you 
 knew it all ! " The thought of a mother com- 
 pelled to leave her baby on such an earth, the 
 betrayal of the confidence of her own mother by 
 her uncle, drew the first tears from her eyes. 
 She leaned her head against the side of her bed 
 and wept, not for herself, but for all women and 
 all orphans. Her hand fell on the lace of her 
 dress, and she could not recall at first what it 
 was. She bounded up, and with eager, trem- 
 bling fingers tearing open the fastenings, she 
 threw the grotesque masquerade, boots and all, 
 far from her on the floor, and stood clasping her 
 naked arms over her panting breast; she had 
 forgotten the gilt wreath on her head. " If she 
 could die then and there ! that would hurt her 
 uncle who cared so little for her, Marcelite who 
 had deserted her ! " Living she had no one, 
 but dead, she felt she had a mother. Before 
 getting into bed, she mechanically fell on her 
 knees, and her lips repeated the formula of a 
 prayer, an uncorrected, rude tradition of her 
 
8o Monsieur Motte. 
 
 baby days, belonging to the other side of her 
 memory. It consisted of one simple petition 
 for her own welfare, but the blessings of peace, 
 prosperity, and eternal salvation of her uncle 
 and Marcelite were insisted upon with pious 
 determination. 
 
 " I know I shall not sleep, I cannot sleep." 
 Even with the words she sank into the oblivion 
 of tired nature at seventeen years ; an oblivion 
 which blotted out everything, — toilette, prizes 
 scattered on the floor, graduation, disappoint- 
 ment, and discomfort from the gilt-paper crown 
 still encircling her black plaits. 
 
 " Has Marcelite come? " demanded Madame, 
 before she tasted her coffee. 
 
 " Not yet, Madame." 
 
 " I wonder what has become of her? " 
 
 Jeanne sniffed a volume of unspeakable 
 probabilities. 
 
 " Well, then, I will not have that sottc Julie ; 
 tell her so when she comes. I would rather 
 dress myself." 
 
 "Will Madame take her breakfast alone, or 
 with Madame Joubert? " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 81 
 
 The pleasure of vacation was tempered by 
 the companionship of Madame Joubert at her 
 daily meals, — a presence imposed by that stern 
 tyrant, common courtesy. 
 
 "Not to-day, Jeanne; tell Madame Joubert I 
 have la migraine. I shall eat breakfast alone." 
 
 "And Mamzelle Marie Modeste? " 
 
 " Marie Modeste ! " 
 
 " Yes, Madame ; where must she take her 
 breakfast? " 
 
 The Gasconne's eyes flamed suddenly from 
 under her red lashes and her voice ventured on 
 its normal loud tones in these sacred precincts. 
 
 " It 's a shame of that negress ! She ought to 
 be punished well for it, too, ha ! Not to come 
 for that poor young lady last night; to leave 
 her in that big dormitory all by herself; and all 
 the other young ladies to go home and have 
 their pleasure, and she all by herself, just be- 
 cause she is an orphan. You think she does n't 
 feel that, Jiein? If I had known it I would have 
 helped her undress, and stayed with her, too ; 
 I would have slept on the floor, — a. delicate 
 little nervous thing like that ; and_a_ great, big* 
 fat, lazy, good-for-nothing qna.rlronn_J ike TVj ar- • 
 
82 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 celite . Mais cest infdme! It is enough to give 
 her des crises. Oh, I would not have done that ! 
 tenez, not to go back to France would I have 
 done that. And when I got up this morning, 
 and saw her sitting in the arbor, so pale, I was 
 frightened myself — I — " 
 
 "What is all this you are telling me? Jeanne, 
 Jeanne, go immediately; run, I tell you — run 
 and fetch that poor child here. Ah, mon Dieu! 
 egoist that I am to forget her ! Panvre petite 
 chattel What must she think of me ? " 
 
 She jumped out of bed, threw on a wrapper, 
 and waited at the door, peeping out. 
 
 " Ma fille; I did not know — Jeanne has just 
 told me." 
 
 The pale little figure made an effort to answer 
 with the old pride and indifference. 
 
 " It seems my uncle — " 
 
 " Mais qu'est-ce que c'est done, mon enfant? 
 Do not cry so ! What is one night more in your 
 old school? It is all my fault; the idea that I 
 should forget you, — leave you all alone while 
 we were enjoying our lemonade and masse-pain! 
 But why did you not come to me? Oh ! oh ! if 
 you cry so, I shall think you are sorry not to 
 
Monsieur Motte. 8$ 
 
 leave me ; besides, it will spoil your pretty 
 eyes." 
 
 " If Marcelite had only come — " 
 " Ah, my dear ! do not speak of her ! do not 
 mention her name to me. We are quittes from 
 this day; you hear me? We are quittes. ' But 
 Marie, my child, you will make yourself ill if 
 you cry so. Really, you must try and compose 
 yourself. What is it that troubles you so? 
 Come here, come sit by me; let me confess you. 
 I shall play that I am your maman. There, 
 there, put your head here, my bcbe, so. Oh, I 
 know how you feel. I have known what disap- 
 pointment was ; but cnfin, my child, that will all 
 pass; and one day, when you are old and gray- 
 headed like me, you will laugh well over it." 
 
 The tender words, the caresses, the enfolding 
 arms, the tears that she saw standing in the 
 august schoolmistress's eyes, the sympathetic 
 movement of the soft, warm bosom, — her idea 
 of a mother was not a vain imagining. This 
 was it; this was what she had longed for all j 
 her life. And she did confess to her, — confessed 
 it all, from the first childish trouble to the last 
 disappointment. Oh, the delicious relief of 
 
84 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 complete, entire confession to a sympathetic 
 
 ear 
 
 \ 
 
 The noble heart of Madame, which had frit- 
 f tered itself away over puny distributions of prizes 
 and deceiving cosmetics, beat young, fresh, and 
 impulsive as in the days \vhen the gray hairs 
 were cliatains clair, and the cheeks bloomed 
 natural roses. Tears fell from her eyes on the 
 little black head lying so truthful, so confiding 
 on her bosom. Grand Dieu! and they had been 
 living thirteen years under the same roof, -\- the 
 poor, insignificant, abandoned, suffering little 
 Marie, and the gay, beautiful, rich, envied 
 Madame Lareveillere ! J This was their first mo- 
 ment of confidence. Would God ever forgive 
 her? Could she ever forgive herself? How good 
 it feels to have a child in your arms ! so. She 
 went to the stand by her bed and filled a small 
 gilded glass with cau des carmes and water. 
 
 " There, drink that, my child ; it will compose 
 you. I must make my toilette; it is breakfast- 
 time. I You see, ma fille, this is a lesson. You 
 must not expect too much of the men ; they are 
 not like us. Oh, I know them well. They are 
 all tgoistes. They take a great deal of trouble 
 
Monsieur Motte. 85 
 
 for you when you do not want it, if it suits them ; 
 and then they refuse to raise their little finger for 
 you, though you get down on your knees to them. 
 Now, there 's your uncle. You see he has sent 
 you to the best jmd most expensive school in the 
 city, and he has dressed you well, — oh, yes, very 
 well ; look at your toilette last night ! real lace ; 
 I remarked it. ! Yet he would not come for you 
 and take you home, and spare you this disap- 
 pointment. I wrote him a note myself and sent 
 it by Marcelite."" 
 
 " He is old, Madame," said Marie, loyally. 
 
 " Ah, bah ! Plus les homines sont vieux pins 
 Us sont mediants. Oh, I have done that so 
 often ; I said, ' If you do not do this, I will not 
 do that.' And what was the result? They did 
 not do this, and I had tout simplcment ct bonne- 
 ment to do that. I write to Monsieur Motte, 
 ' Your niece shall not leave the Pension until 
 you come for her ; ' he does not come, and I take 1 
 her to him. Voila la politique feminine." ,J 
 
 After breakfast, when they had dressed, 
 bonneted, and gloved themselves, Madame 
 said, — 
 
 " Ma foi ! I do not even know where the 
 
86 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 old Diogene lives. Do you remember the name 
 of the street, Marie?" 
 
 " No, Madame ; somewhere in the Faubourg 
 d'en bas." 
 
 " Ah, well ! I must look for it here." 
 
 She went to the table and quickly turned 
 over the leaves of a ledger. 
 
 " Marie Modeste Motte, niece of Monsieur 
 Motte. Mais, tiens, there is no address ! " 
 
 Marie looked with interest at her name writ- 
 ten in red ink. 
 
 "No; it is not there." 
 
 " Ah, que je suis bete. It is in the other one. 
 This one is only for the last ten years. There, 
 via fille, get on a chair ; can you reach that 
 one? No, not that, the other one. How warm 
 it is ! You look it out for me ! " 
 
 " I do not see any address here either, 
 Madame." 
 
 " Impossible ! There must be an address 
 there. True, nothing but Marie Modeste Motte, 
 niece of Monsieur Motte, just like the other 
 one. \ Now, you see, that's Marcelite again; 
 that's all her fault. It was her duty to give 
 that address thirteen years ago. In thirteen 
 
Monsieur Motte. 87 
 
 years she has not had the time to do 
 that ! ""] 
 
 They both sat down warm and vexed. 
 
 " I shall send Jeanne for her again ! " 
 
 But Jeanne's zeal had anticipated orders. 
 
 " I have already been there, Madame ;\ I beat 
 on her door, I beat on it as hard as I could, and 
 the neighbors opened their windows and said 
 they didn't think she had been there all 
 night.' 7 ] 
 
 " Well, then, there is nothing for me to do but 
 send for Monsieur le Notaire ! Here, Jeanne ; 
 take this note to Monsieur Goupilleau." 
 
 All unmarried women, widows or maids, 
 if put to the torture, would reveal some secret, 
 unsuspected sources of advisory assistance, — 
 a subterranean passage for friendship which 
 sometimes offers a retreat into matrimony, — 
 and the last possible wrinkle, the last resist- 
 ing gray hair is added to other female bur- 
 dens at the death of this secret counsellor or 
 the closing up of the hidden passage. fThere- 
 fore, how dreadful it is for women to be con- 
 demned to a life of such logical exactions where 
 a reason is demanded for everything,; even for 
 
88 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 a statu quo affection of fifteen years or more. 
 Madame Lareveillere did not possess courage 
 enough to defy logic, but her imagination and 
 wit could seriously embarrass its conclusions. 
 The raisoji d'etre of a Goupilleau in her life had 
 exercised both into athletic proportions. 
 
 "An old friend, ma mignonne ; I look upon 
 him as a father, and he treats me just as if I 
 were his daughter. | I go to him as to a con- 
 fessor. And a great institute like this requires 
 so much advice, — oh, so much! He is very 
 old, — as old as Monsieur Motte himself^] We 
 might just as well take off our things ; he will 
 not come before evening. You see, he is so 
 discreet, he would not come in the morning for 
 anything in the world. He is just exactly like 
 a father, I assure you, and very, very old." 
 
 The graduate and young lady of a day sat in 
 the rocking-chair, quiet, almost happy. She was 
 not in the home she had looked forward to ; 
 but Madame's tenderness, the beautiful room 
 in its soothing twilight, and the patronizing 
 majesty of the lit de justice made this a very 
 pleasant abiding place in her journey, — the 
 journey so long and so difficult from school 
 
Monsieur Motte. 89 
 
 to her real home, from girlhood to real young 
 ladyhood. It was nearly two days now since 
 she had seen Marcelite. How she longed for 
 her, and what a scolding she intended to give 
 her when she arrived at her uncle's, where, of 
 course, Marcelite was waiting for her. How 
 silly she had acted about the address ! But, 
 after all, procrastination is so natural. As for 
 Madame, Marie smiled as she thought how 
 easily a reconciliation could be effected be- 
 tween them, quittes though they were. 
 
 It is hard to wean young hearts from hop- 
 ing and planning; they will do it in the very 
 presence of the angel of death, and with their 
 shrouds in full view. 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau came : a Frenchman of \ 
 small stature but large head. He had the eyes J 
 of a poet and the smile of a woman. 
 
 The prelude of compliments, the tentative 
 flourish to determine in which key the ensuing 
 variation on their little romance should be 
 played, was omitted. Madame came brusquely 
 to the motif, not personal to either of them. 
 
 " Monsieur Goupilleau, I take pleasure in 
 presenting you to Mademoiselle Marie Motte, 
 
90 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 one of our young lady graduates. Mon ami, 
 we are in the greatest trouble imaginable. Just 
 imagine, Monsieur Motte, the uncle of made- 
 moiselle could not come for her last night to 
 take her home. He is so old and infirm," 
 added Madame, considerately; "so you see 
 mademoiselle could not leave last night: I want 
 to take her home myself — a great pleasure it 
 is, and not a trouble, I assure you, Marie — but 
 we do not know where he lives." 
 
 " Ah ! you have not his address." 
 
 "No, it should be in the ledger; but an 
 accident, — in fact, the laziness of her bonne, 
 who never brought it, not once in thirteen 
 years." 
 
 " Her bonne? " 
 
 "Yes, her bonne Marcelite; you know Mar- 
 celite la coiffcuse; what, you do not know Mar- 
 celite, that great, fat — " 
 
 " Does Marcelite know where he lives ? " 
 
 " But of course, my friend, Marcelite knows, 
 she goes there every day." 
 
 " Well, send for Marcelite." 
 
 " Send for Marcelite ! but I have sent for 
 Marcelite at least a dozen times ! she is never 
 
Monsieur Motte. 91 
 
 at her room. Marcelite ! ha ! my friend, I am 
 done with Marcelite. What do you think? 
 After combing my hair for fifteen years ! — 
 fifteen years, I tell you — she did not come 
 yesterday at all, not once ; and the concert at 
 night ! You should have seen our heads last 
 night! we were frights — frights, I assure you ! " 
 
 It was a poetical license, but the eyes of 
 Monsieur Goupilleau disclaimed any such pos- 
 sibility for the head before him. 
 
 " Does not mademoiselle know the address 
 of her uncle? " 
 
 " Ah, that, no. Mademoiselle has been a 
 peiisionnaire at the Institut St. Denis for thir- 
 teen years, and she has never been anywhere 
 except to church ; she has seen no one without 
 a chaperon ; she has received no letter that has 
 not passed through Madame Joubert's hands. 
 Ah ! for that I am particular, and it was Mon- 
 sieur Motte himself who requested it." 
 
 " Then you need a directory." 
 
 " A what? " 
 
 " A directory." 
 
 " But what is that, — a directory? " 
 
 "It's a volume, Madame, a book contain- 
 
92 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 ing the addresses of all the residents of the 
 city." 
 
 " Quelle bonne idie! If I had only known 
 that ! I shall buy one. Jeanne ! Jeanne ! run 
 quick, ma bonne, to Morel's and buy me a 
 directory." 
 
 " Pardon, Madame, I think it would be 
 quicker to send to Bale's, the pharmacien at the 
 corner, and borrow one. Here, Jeanne, take 
 my card." 
 
 " A la bonne heure! now we shall find our 
 affair." 
 
 But the M's, which started so many names in 
 the directory, were perfectly innocent of any 
 combination applicable to an old uncle by the 
 name of Motte. 
 
 " You see, your directory is no better than 
 my books ! " 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau looked mortified, and 
 shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " He must live outside the city limits, 
 Madame." 
 
 " Marcelite always said, ' in the Faubourg 
 d'en bas* " 
 
 Jeanne interrupted stolidly: "Monsieur Bale 
 
Monsieur Motte. 93 
 
 told me to bring the book right back; it is 
 against his rules to lend it out of his store." 
 
 "Here, take it! take it! Tell him I am 
 infinitely obliged. It was of no use, any way. 
 Ah, les homm.es/ " 
 
 " Madame," began Monsieur Goupilleau in 
 precautionary deprecation. 
 
 A sudden noise outside, — apparently an as- 
 sault at the front door; a violent struggle in 
 the antechamber ! 
 
 " Grand Dieu! what can that be ! " Ma- 
 dame's lips opened for a shrill An secours! 
 Voleurs! but seeing the notary rush to the 
 door, she held him fast with her two little white 
 hands on his arm. 
 
 " Mon ami, I implore you ! " 
 
 The first recognition ; the first expression of\ 
 a fifteen years' secret affection ! The first thrill J 
 (old as he was) of his first passion ! But dan-y 
 ger called him outside ; he unloosed the hands 
 and opened the door. 
 
 A heavy body propelled by Jeanne's strong 
 hands fell on the floor of the room, accom- 
 panied by a shower of leaves from Monsieur 
 Bale's directory. 
 
94 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " Miserable! Infdme! Effrontie! Ah, I have 
 caught you ! Scelerate! " 
 
 "Marcelite!" 
 
 " Marcelite ! " 
 
 " Marcelite?" 
 
 " Sneaking outside the gate ! Like an animal ! 
 like a thief! like a dog! Ha! I caught you 
 well ! " 
 
 The powerful arms seemed ready again to 
 crush the unresisting form rising from the floor. 
 
 " Jeanne ! hush ! How dare you speak to 
 Marcelite like that? Oh, ma bonne, what is the 
 matter with you? " 
 
 Shaking, trembling, she cowered before them 
 silent. 
 
 " Ah ! she did n't expect me, lajihy ne'gresse ! 
 Just look at her ! " 
 
 They did, in painful, questioning surprise. 
 Was this their-jpwn^ clean, ne at,Jarave, honest, 
 h.andsome__Marcelite, — this_jDanting, tottering, 
 bedraggled wretch before them, threafehing to 
 fall on the floor again, not daring to raise even 
 her eyes? 
 
 " Marcelite ! Marcelite ! who has done this to 
 you ! Tell me, tell your be'bi, Marcelite." 
 
Monsieur Motte. 95 
 
 "Is she drunk?" whispered Madame to the 
 V notary. 
 
 Her tignon had been dragged from her head. 
 Her calico dress, torn and defaced, showed her 
 skin in naked streaks. Her black woolly hair, 
 always so carefully packed away under her 
 head-kerchief, stood in grotesque masses around 
 her face, scratched and bleeding like her ex- 
 posed bosom. She jerked herself violently 
 away from Marie's clasp. 
 
 " Send them away ! Send them away ! " she 
 at last said to Monsieur Goupilleau, in a low, 
 unnatural voice. " I will talk to you, but send 
 them all away." 
 
 Madame and Marie immediately obeyed his 
 look; but outside the door Marie stopped firmly. 
 
 " Madame, Marcelite can have nothing to say 
 which I should not hear — " 
 
 "Hush — " Madame put her finger to her 
 lips ; the door was still a little open and the 
 voices came to them. 
 
 Marcelite, from the corner of her bleared 
 eyes, watched them retire, and then with a great 
 heave of her naked chest she threw herself on 
 the floor at the notary's feet. 
 
9 6 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " Master ! Oh master !_ HelgjneJ " 
 / All the suffering and pathos of a woman's 
 heart were in the tones, all the weakness, de- 
 v pendence, and abandonment in the words. 
 
 The notary started at the unexpected appeal. 
 His humanity, his manhood, his chivalry, an- 
 swered it. 
 
 " Ma fillc, speak; what can I do for you? " 
 
 He bent over her as she lay before him, and 
 put his thin, white, wrinkled hand on her shoul- 
 der, where it had burst through her dress. His 
 low voice promised the willing devotion of a 
 saviour. 
 
 " But don't tell my bebe, don't let her know. 
 My God ! it will kill her ! ^heJs_g_ot no uncle — 
 no Monsi gj pr Motte ! It^ was all a_j ie. It was 
 me, — -m^ajiigge^ that sent her to school and 
 paid for her — " 
 
 " You ! Marcelite ! You ! " 
 
 Marcelite jumped up and tried to escape from 
 the room. Monsieur Goupilleau quickly ad- 
 vanced before her to the door. 
 
 " You fooled me ! It was you fooled me ! " 
 she screamed to Madame. " God will never for- 
 give you for that ! My bibi has heard it all ! " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 97 
 
 Marie clung to her; Monsieur Goupilleau 
 caught her by the arm. 
 
 " Marcelite ! It was you, — you who sent me 
 to school, who paid for me ! And I have no 
 uncle? " 
 
 Marcelite looked at the notary, — a prayer for 
 help. The girl fell in a chair and hid her face 
 in her hands. 
 
 " Oh, my God ! I knew it would kill her ! I 
 knew it would ! To be supported by a nigger ! " 
 She knelt by the chair. " Speak to me, Mam- 
 zelle Marie. Speak to me just once! Pardon 
 me, my little mistress ! Pardon me ! I did not 
 know what I was doing; I am only a fool 
 nigger, anyhow ! I wanted you to go to the 
 finest school with ladies, and — and — oh! my 
 bebe won't speak to me ; she won't even look 
 at me." 
 
 Marie raised her head, put both hands on 
 the nurse's shoulders, and looked her straight 
 in the eyes. 
 
 " And that also was all a lie about " — she sank 
 her trembling voice — " about my mother? " 
 
 " That a lie ! That a lie ! 'Fore God in 
 heaven, that was the truth ; I swear it. I will 
 7 
 
98 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 kiss the crucifix. What do you take me for, 
 Mamzelle Marie? Tell a lie about — " 
 
 Marie fell back in the chair with a despairing 
 cry. 
 
 " I cannot believe any of it." 
 
 "Monsieur! Madame! I swear to you it's 
 .the truth ! God in heaven knows it is. I would 
 n't lie about that, — about my poor dead young 
 mistress. Monsieur ! Madame ! tell Miss Marie 
 forme; can't you believe me?" She shrieked 
 in desperation to Monsieur Goupilleau. 
 
 He came to her unhesitatingly. " I believe 
 you, Marcelite." He put his hand again on her 
 shoulder; his voice faltered, " Poor Marcelite ! " 
 
 " God bless you, master! God bless you for 
 that. Let me tell you ; you believe me when 
 my bebe won't. My young ^mistress, she died ; 
 my_j^ujig_n2a3tex^Jie_Jiad__been killed in the 
 war. My young mistress was all alone by her- 
 self, with nobody but me, and I did n't take her 
 poor little baby out of her arms till she was 
 dead, as she told me. Mon btte, irion bebe ! 
 don't you know that's the truth? Can't you 
 feel that's the truth? \_You see that; she will 
 never speak to me again. I knew it; I told you 
 
Monsieur Motte. 99 
 
 so. I heard her last night, in that big room, 
 all by herself, crying for Marcelite. Marcelite ! 
 my God ! I was afraid to go to her, and I was 
 just under a bed ; you think that did n't 'most 
 kill me?" I She hid her face in her arms, and 
 swayed her body back and forth. 
 
 " Marcelite," said Monsieur Goupilleau. The 
 voice of the champion trembled, and his eyes 
 glistened with tears at the distress he had pledged 
 himself to relieve. " Marcelite, I believe you, 
 my poor woman ; I believe you. Tell me the 
 name of the lady, the mother of Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Ha! her name! I am not ashamed to tell 
 her name before anybody. Her name ! I will 
 tell you her name." She sprang to her feet. 
 '' You ask anybody fron\the Paroisse St. Jacques 
 if they ever heard the name of Mamzelle Marie 
 Modeste Viel and Monsieur Alphonse Motte. 
 That was the name of her mother and her father, 
 and I am not ashamed of it that I shouldn't tell, 
 ha ! Yes, and I am Marcelite Gaulois, and when 
 iny_jn^JJier-Airas_soldout the parish, who took me 
 and brought me up, andmacTtTme sleep on the 
 foot of her bed, and fed me like her own baby, 
 hein? Mamzelle Marie Viel's mother, and Mam- 
 
ioo Monsieur Motte. 
 
 zelle wa s the _other baby ; _and she nursed us^like_ 
 twi ns, hein ? You ask anybody from the Paroisse 
 St. Jacques. They know; they can tell you." 
 
 Marie stood up. 
 
 " Come, Marcelite, let us go. Madame, Mon- 
 sieur — " She evidently struggled to say some- 
 thing else, but she only reiterated, " I must go; 
 we must go; come, Marcelite, let us go." 
 
 No one would have remarked now that her 
 eyes were too old for her face. 
 
 "Go? My Lord! Where have you got to 
 go to ? " 
 
 " I want to go home to Marcelite ; I want to 
 go away with her; come, Marcelite, let us go. 
 Oh ! don't you all see I can't stay here any 
 longer? Let me go! Let me go!" 
 
 " Go with me ! Go to my home ! A white 
 young lady~Ji4ce^vjiu^o_Ji ye w ith_ a ni gger like. 
 me|" 
 
 "Come, Marcelite; please come; go with 
 me ; I don't want to stay here." 
 
 " You stand there ! You hear that ! Monsieur ! 
 Madame ! You hear that ! " 
 
 " Marcelite, I want to go with you ; I want to 
 live with you ; I am not too good for that." 
 
Monsieur Motto . ior 
 
 " What ! You doiVt think you ain't white ! 
 Oh, God !_ Strike me dead_!j' 
 
 She raised her naked arms over her head, 
 imploring destruction. 
 
 " Marcelite, ma fille, do not forget, I have 
 
 promised to help you. Marcelite, only listen 
 
 to me a moment. Mademoiselle, do not fear; 
 
 Mademoiselle shall not leave us. I shall pro- x ^ 
 
 tect her ; I shall be a father to her — " 
 
 "And I," said Madame, drawing Marie still / 
 
 I 
 closer to her, — "I shall be her mother." 
 
 " Now, try, Marcelite," continued Monsieur 
 Goupilleau, — ■) " try to remember somebody, any- 
 body who knows you, who knew your mistress; 
 I want their names. Anybody, anybody will 
 
 do, my poor Marcelite ! ! Indeed, I believe you ; 
 
 J 
 we all believe you ; we know you are telling the 
 
 truth; but is there not a person, even a book, a 
 
 piece of paper, anything, you can remember?" 
 
 He stood close to her; his head did not reach 
 
 above her shoulders, but his eyes plead into her 
 
 face as if petitioning for his own honor ; and 
 
 then they followed the hands of the woman 
 
 fumbling, feeling, passing, repassing inside her 
 
 torn dress-waist. He held his hands out, — the 
 
102 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 kind tender little hands that had rested so gently 
 on her bruised black skin. 
 
 " If I have not lost it, if I have not dropped 
 it out of my gown since last night — I never 
 have dropped it, and I have carried it round 
 inside my body now for seventeen years ; but 
 I was 'most crazy last night — " 
 
 She put a small package all wrapped up in an 
 old bandanna handkerchief in his hands. 
 
 " I was keeping that for my bebc; I was going 
 to give it to her when she graduated, just to 
 remind her of her own mother. She gave it to 
 me when she died." 
 
 It was only a little worn-out prayer-book, but 
 all filled with written papers and locks of hair 
 and dates and certificates, — fraijjluttering scraps 
 that dropped all over the table, but unanswer- 
 able champions for the honor of dead men and 
 the purity of dead women. 
 
 " Par lagrdce de Dieu! " exclaimed the notary, 
 while the tears fell from his eyes on the precious 
 relics, discolored and worn from bodily contact. 
 Marie sank on her knees by the table, holding 
 Marcelite tight by the hand. 
 
 " Par la gr&ce de Dieu! Nothing is wanting 
 
Monsieur Matte. 103 
 
 here, — nothing, nothing except the forgiveness 
 of this good woman, and the assurances of our 
 love and gratitude. / And they say," turning to 
 Madame, he hazarded the bold step of taking 
 both her hands in his, — "they say," recollecting 
 the tender pressure on his arm, he ventured 
 still further, — " the y say, Eugenie, that th e, /_ 
 day^_jDf_Jieroism are_past, andjthey_la_ugh at 
 our romance ! " 
 
 And then the vacation again, the midsum- 
 mer pause in life. The sun increasing its meas- 
 ure and degree of heat day by day, over- 
 assessing the cooling powers of the night; and 
 quietness settling itself more and more fixedly 
 in the schoolrooms and yard, which seemed to 
 grow larger and larger, increasing their space 
 with their emptiness. The hard-worked pianos 
 stood mute in their little cells. The great gate 
 remained locked and bolted, only the little door 
 swinging open at irregular intervals to admit 
 some extra industrious or extra ignorant little 
 mind coming to " make a class," as she called 
 it, with Madame Joubert, always ready to lead 
 a forlorn hope against participles or fractions. 
 
104 Monsieur Matte. 
 
 Marie Modeste knew the summer vacation 
 better than any lesson she had learned in the 
 St. Denis. There were no new pages in it for 
 her. It had always contained the same old 
 days sent over and over again, as if there were 
 no need to vary a routine which, bringing rest 
 and silence, brought a never-palling treat to the 
 Institute. The naked beds in the dormitory, 
 / the white peignoirs of Madame Joubert's un- 
 \ graceful desliabille, the muslins and novels of 
 Madame Lareveillere, her own relaxed efforts 
 for comfort and coolness, ■ — it all might have 
 been any one of the lived-out summers behind 
 her. There. was_no missing detail of thej past 
 injthe present. But for the future, — looking for 
 it there was no fujture. Where it had been, the 
 girl saw only a blank space, or a world thick 
 with strangers, aliens. Was there then no living 
 person among them all to hold her, to connect 
 her, with humanity? Was she only a waif, a 
 vestige? Was there then no house for her feet 
 to enter seeking a home, no home holding a 
 welcoming host for her, — not even a cold, mis- 
 anthropic, selfish, ungracious old uncle ; \only 
 tombs, and the incommunicable dead? 
 
Monsieur Malic. 105 
 
 The mornings and evenings, the whole life 
 she had filled out in imagination, — was it all 
 a mirage ? And her studies, had they been 
 learned only for herself? Ah ! she had had hard 
 feelings against her uncle at times ; she had se- 
 cretly cried at nights about him ; she had been 
 ashamed of him ; she had abused him to Mar- 
 celite ; she had even written, in passionate mo- 
 ments, wild letters of expostulation to him ; 
 but she had loved him through it all, — le 
 vieux. However illy he had treated her, he 
 had nevertheless represented her family to her . 
 All her efforts had been made to please him 
 some day, all her hopes cherished subject to 
 his approval. Were he a thousand times worse 
 than her loyalty had ever permitted the ac- 
 cusation, he were a benefaction to her now; 
 for he had not gone out of existence alone, — ■ 
 he had taken her world, her home, her family, 
 her nurse, her friend, her almost mother, with 
 him. [_Where was the Marcelite of months and 
 years gone by? Who was this wretched substi- 
 tute crouching, cringing, trembling before her, 
 unnaturally, unrecognizably? ! 
 
 The quadroon, unmasked, stripped of dis- 
 
io6 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 guise, had indeed lost her ner ve and audacity. 
 
 Her brave personation was over. As Marcelite, 
 
 y there was nothing to accomplish excep:Lthe__p_art 
 
 ofj^faithful servant. As Monsieur Motte, wh at 
 
 £ould__she _not_do_? I f she _ could only_Jiave 
 
 created him_ouL-ofher own death ! If she could 
 only have made what she had so happily in- 
 vented ! If she could o jily-Jbave-^irolonged in- 
 definitely the undisturbed confidence _and trust 
 which had existed between Mari e Mo deste and 
 herse lf! Her old volubility was gone. What- 
 ever she said, lay under one vast suspicion. 
 She could not meet the eyes of Marie Mo- 
 deste ; she could not even hold up her head 
 before Jeanne. She began to reproach God, 
 and vaguely to rebel against the shadow on her 
 skin as casting the shadow on her life. 
 
 "Oh, my bebe ! my little mistress! it^s your 
 nurse, it's your own negro who loves you, who. 
 would die for you ! " — words which took the 
 place of her prayers, her thoughts ; her lips 
 ware always moving under them. She would 
 undo her kerchief and put her hand where once 
 the little face lay like a white magnolia against 
 the dark skin, and go to sleep so. The place 
 
Monsieur Motte. 107 
 
 craved and ached so at times that she put 
 plasters on it, and wore consecrated amulets 
 over it. \ Her love, which had always been un- 
 scrupulous, became in her distress ferocious, 
 insatiable ; and she would rush to Madame 
 Lareveillere, and like some wild animal that 
 cannot tell its pain would shed mute tears and 
 utter inarticulate moans. ( 
 
 " Frankly," said Madame to Monsieur Goupil- 
 leau, who came now in vacation regularly with 
 the evening shades, as if to meet them on her 
 gallery by appointment, " he will kill us all, — 
 that old man ! I can never forgive him for not 
 having lived ; but it is in accordance with his 
 character," shrugging her shoulders. " What 
 a monster of selfishness ! I have been think- 
 ing, — ah, you do not know what my life is v 
 here with those two, Marie and Marcelite ! — I 
 have been thinking that perhaps I would ac- 
 qep_t_A urore A ngely's invitation. She writes me 
 every year to come on a visit to her plantation for 
 a month or two. What do you say, eh? There 
 is only one objection, — it is in the country. If it 
 were only in the city; but the country, — dame! 
 VI have always held the country in horror. \ It 
 
 <c 
 
io8 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 is years since I have seen Aurore and Felix . 
 Ah ! he is a torpedo for you ! exploding at a 
 touch. Poor little thing! She has never been 
 to the country, never even seen it ! " con- 
 tinuing, after a pause unbroken by her friend. 
 The consultations with Monsieur Goupilleau 
 generally took the form of a monologue on her 
 part. " I thought of course her old uncle would 
 take her somewhere this summer, and introduce 
 her _to socjet y nex t^winter, and marry her to 
 s ome^ood p arti. It is barbarous, — the disap- 
 pointment; it is positively a massacre!" 
 
 If the notary did not speak, it was not because 
 he had nothing to suggest or propose; on the 
 contrary, he was far advanced into the next win- 
 ter with his plans, which defined themselves as 
 if by enchantment under the low flexible voice 
 of the lady. 
 
 " You see, my friend, a disappointment cracks 
 us all, — us women, -\- as if we were fine vases. 
 Ma foil we ought all to be sold as bargains, — 
 damaged goods. ) I am sure we are all cracked 
 somewhere ; the fracture may be hidden, but 
 never mind, it is there, and every woman knows 
 just where it is, and feels it too. Marie has re- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 109 
 
 ceived hers ; she will never he_s.Q,und-agam. It 
 is very hard, all the same, for us older women to 
 see young girls come into life so fresh, so fair, 
 and so unconscious, and tap ! there they are, hit 
 right in the heart, and no one can save or pre- 
 vent it. \ I wonder if there is a sound woman in 
 the world ! " 
 
 " I should hope not, Madame ! " exclaimed 
 Monsieur Goupilleau, involuntarily. / " What an 
 unbearable creature she would be ! No." Of 
 summer evenings, in gallery conversations, one 
 hazards any thought. Perhaps it came from 
 some of his early poetry. " God knows best; 
 when he wishes to put the finishing, the per- 
 fecting touch to a woman, he simply sends her 
 in youth some misfortune. It is his way; and I 
 for one," shrugging his shoulders, " have noth- 
 ing to criticise, seeing the results ; " looking — > 
 but she was not aware of it — at the woman 
 before him. 
 
 " The invitation comes this year like a God- 
 send." 
 
 Apropos of the Deity, Madame drifted back 
 to the important item in her mind. " I can 
 see now, it is positively the best thing we can 
 
no Monsieur Motte. 
 
 do. To-day is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 
 Friday," she counted on her fingers. " Yes, I 
 think we can take the Saturday boat; you know 
 the boats leave every Saturday evening. And 
 now," — rising, — "I must go immediately and 
 inform Madame Joubert. To tell you the truth, 
 my friend," — in the merest whisper, — " I do not 
 think I could endure Madame Joubert all the 
 summer. She is of a rigidity, — a rigidity ! " rais- 
 ing her eyes and hands to express it. " But 
 do not go; I shall return in a moment. 1 1 have 
 something else to consult you about, you are 
 so kind ! "^J 
 
 II. 
 
 ON THE PLANTATION. 
 
 THE autumn was struggling for recognition, 
 and was making an impression upon all but the 
 mid-day hours. In the mornings, the air came 
 cool and crisp, full of incentives to work. In the 
 evenings, the soft languor and dreamy inertness 
 of summer had been driven away by a wide- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 1 1 r 
 
 awake activity, with good resolutions and plans 
 of future energy to be discussed inside closed 
 doors and windows into late hours of the night. 
 The roses in the garden bloomed pale and list- 
 less after their exhausting summer season, shiv- 
 ering perfumelessly in the practical October 
 breezes. The trees were in the full glory of their 
 rich green foliage. The cane in the fields stood 
 in thick, solid maturity, with long, green, pen- 
 dent leaves curling over and over in bewildering 
 luxuriance. The sunset clouds, bursting with 
 light and color, gilded the tops of the boundary 
 woods and illumined like a halo the familiar 
 features of plantation life. The Mississippi 
 River, reflecting and rivalling the sky above, 
 rolled, an iridescent current, between its yellow 
 mud banks cut into grotesque silhouettes by 
 crevasses and steamboat landings as it dimpled 
 in eddies over shallows, boiled and swirled in 
 hollow whirlpools over depths, or rushed with 
 inflexible, relentless rapidity, following the chan- 
 nel in its angular course from point to point. 
 
 The day's work had come to an end. The 
 plantation bell rang out its dismissal and bene- 
 diction. The blacksmith laid down the half- 
 
ii2 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 sharpened cane-knife and began covering up 
 the fire. From mysterious openings on all 
 sides of the sugar-house workmen issued with 
 tools in their hands. The stable doors were 
 thrown open, and [the hostlers, old crooked- 
 legged negroesj hurried about with food for the 
 mules. The cows tinkled their impatient bells 
 outside the milking-lot, while the frantic calves 
 bounded and bleated inside. From the two long 
 rows of w hite w ashed ca bins in the quarters the 
 smoke began to rise. The dr owsy young women, 
 sitting with their babies on the cab in step s, shifted 
 their positions, and raised thgjr. apathetig_eyes 
 from the ea ger faces p ressing against their bos- 
 oms to the heavens aboW for ocular confirma- 
 tion of the bell, and turned their ears toward the 
 road from the fields.) The exempt old women, 
 the house_dragons, wrinkled, withered decrepit, 
 deformed, with all but life used out of them, 
 hobbled around in a fictitious bustle, picking up 
 chips, filling buckets of water at the cistern, or 
 stood with .their hands pressed against their 
 bent backs to send blood-curdling threats and 
 promises after the children. \ 
 
 Along the smooth yellow road through the 
 
Monsieur Mot te. 113 
 
 field came the " gang, " with their mules and 
 wagons, ploughs and hoes. In advance walked 
 the wome n,] swaying themselves from side to 
 side with characteristic abandon,] lighting their 
 rude pipes, hailing the truce to toil with loud 
 volubility. Against the luminous evening sky 
 their black profiles came out with startling dis- 
 tinctness, showing features just sharpening into 
 regularity from cartilaginous formlessness, the 
 gleam, of white teeth, and the g audy colors of 
 the cotton kerchiefs knotted across their brows. 
 Their b odies, _as_though vaguely rec-allmg_ances- 
 tral nudity amid tropical fores ts, s eem ed to defy 
 concealme nt, throwing out bold curves and show- 
 ing lines of s avage grac e through the scant folds 
 of their loose-fitting garments. Sylvan secrets 
 seemed still to hang around them. In their soft 
 sad__ey_es, not yet cleared and brightened by 
 s ophistication, spok ethe untamed desires o f 
 wild, free Nat ure ; while fitfully in the opaque 
 depths shone bright gleams of a struggling 
 intelligence, pathetic^ appeals as from an im- 
 
 prisone d spirit protesti ng_against foul Circean 
 enchantment. The men followed, (aggressively 
 masculine, heavy-limbed, slow of movement) on 
 
ii4 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 their hampered, shod feet ; wearing their clothes 
 like harness; with unhandsome, chaotic faces, 
 small eyes, and concealed natures. They watched 
 the women with jealous interest, excluding them 
 from their hilarity, and responding grudgingly 
 and depreciatingly to their frank overtures. The 
 water-carriers, half-grown boys and girls, idled 
 at a distance, balancing their empty pails on 
 their bare heads, — quick and light on their feet, 
 graceful, alert, intuitive, exuberant with life and 
 animal spirits, they were happy in the thought- 
 less, unconscious enjoyment of the short mo- 
 ment that yet separated them from their— ho±, 
 dull, heavy, jan gerous maturity. 
 
 The anticipations of cheer and rest, the subtile 
 satisfaction of honestly tired bodies ; the flat- 
 tering commendations of their own skill from 
 the finely cultivated stand of cane on each side 
 of them ; the past expiations of ploughing, ditch- 
 ing, weeding, hoeing ; the freezing rains ; the 
 scorching suns ; but, above all, the approach of 
 'the grinding season, the " roulaison," with its 
 frolics, excitements, and good pay, — all tended 
 \o elate their spirits ; and their voices, in joke, 
 song, laugh, and retort, sped down the road 
 
Monsieur Motte. 1 1 5 
 
 before them to the quarters, and evoked respon- 
 sive barks and shouts from the dogs and chil- 
 dren there. 
 
 It was the busy time of the year, and the 
 anxious time too, — the roulaison. It was the 
 period to which the rest of the year led up, 
 the chronological terminus of calculation and 
 cultivation, when the fields with their accumu- 
 lated interest of labor and capital were delivered 
 over for judgment to the sugar-house. Always 
 dominating the place! the material importance 
 of the sugar-house became tyrannical, oppres- 
 sive, as cane-cutting approached, j It reared it- 
 self — an ugly, square, red-brick structure — men- 
 acingly before the fields ; it dwarfed the__^big 
 house " into insignificance, and, with its vast 
 shed, divided by the cane-carrier, its chimneys, 
 furnaces, boiler, bagasse-heaps, its mountainous 
 wood-pile and barricade of new hogsheads, it 
 shut out the view of the river from the quarters, 
 and consigned the latter to a species of seclusion. 
 What .its verdict would be, was now the one 
 item of interest to all, from the oldest gray- 
 beard to the youngest thinker on " Bel_Angely " 
 plantation. What the sugar-house decided, 
 
n6 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 /fixed the good or bad character of the past 
 year, and approved or disproved the executive 
 ability of the plantation manager. It is a close 
 contest between man and Nature, and the always 
 increasing science of the one is more than coun- 
 terbalanced by the capricious obstinacy of the 
 other. (The old men and women, heirlooms of 
 departed experiences, found themselves growing 
 in importance with autumn, and their rusty 
 memories became oracles to furnish data for 
 prognostication. There were the " big freeze " 
 and the " early freeze " and the " late freeze " 
 years. There were years when the cane 
 sprouted in the mats, when the second-year 
 stubble could not be told from first-year, and 
 the first-year stubble filled up like plant cane. 
 Then there were all the years marked by a 
 water-line of rises, overflows, and crevasses. 
 There was one memory that contained a year in 
 which the Mississippi froze all over, and several 
 that perpetuated the falling of the stars ; but 
 however persistently such a recurrence was 
 periodically suggested, Nature had been pleased 
 to withhold a repetition. The autocratic sugar- 
 house itself was not beyond damaging recollec- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 117 
 
 tions: it might have been a natural product, or 
 a season, for the number of hitches and breaks 
 with which it managed to vary its runs, and the 
 success with which it eluded its yearly exam- 
 iners and tinkers. Then, there was the sacha- 
 rometer to disparage the splendid growth of the 
 cane, the polariscope to contradict the sacha- 
 rometer, and, finally, the commission merchant 
 to give the lie to Nature and man ; with high 
 charges and low prices to enjoin all hopes, re- 
 verse all calculations, and not only damn the past 
 but confound the future. No roulaison ever 
 came exactly like a preceding one, and no season 
 ever duplicated its calamities ;lbut never had rou- 
 laison come with such guarantee of success, to be 
 met with so unforeseen a mishap as the illness of 
 Monsi eur Felix, — ill in bed of sciatica \) 
 
 In the great ledger commenced by the first 
 sugar-making Angely, down to day before yes- 
 terday, never had such an item been recorded. 
 It was like the jllness of a commander just be- 
 fore_battle. And such a commander as Mon- 
 sieur Felix was ! — f not trusting the sun to shine 
 or the cane to grow in his absence ; his ever- 
 watchful eye and unwearied sagacity pervading 
 
n8 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 the plantation from limit to limit ; so omniscient 
 and self-reliant that if there were one place 
 on the perverse globe that could dispense with 
 supernal jurisdiction, one place that could be 
 safely trusted to earthly viceregency, that place 
 was Bel Angely plantation, Parish of St. Charles. 
 He had had his bed pulled close to the window, 
 and any hour of the day, from dawn to dark, his 
 bright red face, with its fierce gray mustache, 
 could be seen looking out, and his excited voice 
 heard screaming, scolding, expostulating, and 
 threatening, until even the pet chickens and 
 ducks deserted their favorite feeding- place, 
 and the little, crawling black children, with their 
 skirts tied up under their arms, learned to imi- 
 
 gallery or dodged behind the out-houses to 
 avoid him. If the dooPof his bedchamber were 
 inadvertently left open but a second, little gusts 
 of passion would escape down the hall, blasting 
 like tiny siroccos the healthful calm and good- 
 humor outside. Mademc^seJJ^_Aurore herself, 
 with allJier--naturak-aiLd_cultivated_conscientious- 
 ness, had to feign deafness in order to secure 
 necessary leisure for housekeeping directions. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 1 1 9 
 
 " Ah, mon Dieu ! les homines ! les homines ! " 
 was all she could exclaim to her own and the 
 interrogatories of others. She knew by expe- 
 rience that weather contingencies and constitu- 
 tional irregularities were always to be visited on 
 the females of the house. VShe did not repine at 
 things she was inured to, or rebel against a man- 
 ifest design of Providence; but that wretched 
 Gabi ! j- The abbreviation named an important 
 division in the cares and responsibilities of her 
 life, — 2l_ half- Indian, half-negro waif whom she 
 had hopefully taken in charge, a rightful heir of 
 the combined laziness of two races, and trustee 
 of the mischief of all. 
 
 No wonder she was nearly distracted and 
 completely unable, as heretofore, to extract 
 good omens from patent misfortunes. Her life 
 had been counted by roulaisons, as some wom- 
 en's are by Springs, and she felt as if this one 
 were going to put her, with the cane in the 
 fields, between the great revolving grinders of 
 the mill. There was always enough to be done, 
 — enough impatience and vexation to contend 
 with naturally, (if Gabi could only have ac- 
 quitted himself properly! If Felix could only 
 
120 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 have gotten ill at some other time it If she 
 could only be allowed to take the sciatica as a 
 physical instead of a mental burden!) She had 
 done everything, as a sister and a Christian, to 
 relieve the tension of affairs. She had placed 
 herself at the disposition of every functionary 
 on the place, — sugar-maker, cooper, engineer, 
 blacksmith, — and was at the beck and call 
 of every " hand " coming for food, medicine, 
 advice, or instruction. She had entered into 
 negotiations with every saint in the calendar 
 amenable to representations on the subject of 
 sugar or sciatica. Her room fairly blazed with 
 temporary shrines, and candles which her own 
 little personal requisitions had kept for years 
 in a state of perpetual incandescence ; by a 
 conp-d 'etat she had transferred them all from 
 her own account to that of the plantation and 
 her brother. She was in constant communi- 
 cation with the parish priest, although he was 
 a rough, vulgar Gascon whom she detested. 
 In fact, she had expended vows and promises 
 so recklessly, that were but half her prayers 
 granted, she could look forward to none but a 
 future of religious insolvency if not bankruptcy. 
 
Monsieur Motte. v 121 
 
 But Gabi ! that was an entirely superfluous 
 complication. _J 
 
 As usual she had been too zealous. To save 
 the labor of a man, at so critical a time, and 
 to extort tardy appreciation of her protege, 
 she had taken it upon herself to [send him for 
 the mail. She had often wished to send him 
 before, his trustworthiness being a matter of 
 dispute between her and her brother; J but 
 Felix had always peremptorily refused. He 
 was prejudiced against Gabi, and there was 
 no arguing away his prejudices; but his illness 
 afforded a timely opportunity of destroying 
 them. He las ! 
 
 She stood by the door of the chamber, in 
 which not one but a dozen sciaticas appeared to 
 be unleashed, holding in her hands the mail-bag: 
 not the one she had given Gabi with so many \ 
 careful instructions in the gray light of the morn- 
 ing, — that one had been dropped and dropped in 
 the dust and mud of the road and ditches ; and 
 finally, when Gabi had concluded to take his 
 rest^mbjsken_jinj^je_sh^ of in 
 
 fractional naps on the mule's back, the swine had 
 come along, and with ruthless tusks had reduced 
 
122 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 the contents to a shapeless mass. She had ex- 
 tracted one crumpled, soiled, foul letter from 
 the debris, and put it in the new, clean, alternate 
 r bag, — one letter ! when at this season Felix was 
 , corresponding with every other man in New 
 \Orleans ! And GabHia^jiiade_^u^li_agood first 
 communion Ja^^ring^andjieve r, ne ver missed 
 chu rch ! The mule, too, had wandered away, 
 Saint Anthony alone knew where; Gabi was 
 in her cabinet now, hiding from Edmond, who 
 was searching for him with a whip. She could 
 keep it from Felix until he got well ; but then, 
 of course, she must tell him. 
 
 When she came out of the room a half-hour 
 later she was enveloped in a bitter condemna- 
 tion of postmistresses and neglectful correspon- 
 dents, and pursued by a last rush of important 
 commissions. 
 
 (' Send Edmond to me. Tell Joe to get ready 
 to take the next boat to the city. I thought 
 you were going to hunt up that roll of wire in 
 the store-room. Has n't old Simon sent yet? 
 Don't forget to copy Smith's estimate. Go to 
 the sugar-house — no ; I shall tell Duval myself 
 to go to the devil with his charges. Don't 
 
Monsieur Motte. 123 
 
 forget about the lamp-wicks and the towels for 
 the sugar-house, and — oh, yes, tell Stasie to 
 fetch me some ink; it is very strange that the 
 inkstand is never filled unless I see about it 
 myself — and Aurore ! " ^ 
 
 " Yes, Fefe." 
 
 " The key of the medicine chest ! " 
 
 " Miserc! Miseve! " She held her hands to 
 her head, trying to sort them out. She made 
 a motion toward the sugar-house, but changed 
 it to the direction of the store-room. She 
 / remembered the medicine-chest key, and felt for 
 ( the key-basket on her arm. It was not there. 
 " She wondered where it could be, and started 
 toward her chamber in search of it, when she 
 caught a glimpse of Madame Lareveillere on the 
 gallery. Then the reproach came to her that 
 she had not yet wished her friend good- 
 evening. 
 
 " Boii-soir, Eugenie." 
 
 " Bou-soir, Aurore." 
 
 " Ma chh'e, I feel like a pagan, leaving you so 
 much alone; but Fefe, — you cannot imagine 
 what he is ! What makes men such devils when 
 they are sick? If Fefe would only be sensible 
 
7> 
 
 124 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 and have a physician and get well ; but no, he 
 and Stasie think they can cure anything. Phy- 
 sician ! he would as soon see a priest, and priests 
 are his bites-noires. How can an jntelhgejit. 
 man be so prejudiced ? But it is the way he 
 
 ''was educated; that comes of sending boys to 
 France to be educated ; that is the teaching 
 of Messieurs Voltaire and Rousseau. Oh, I 
 
 ^compliment them ! " 
 
 Her irony was mordant. She came out of the 
 doorway and seated herself upon the top step 
 of the staircase that wound its way to the base- 
 ment underneath. " And Gabi ! ah, that is too 
 much ! Fancy, Eugenie, after all the trouble I 
 took to explain to him this morning, he brings 
 the mail-bag devoured by hogs, — all the let- 
 ters a disgusting mass. Only one could I ex- 
 tricate entire for Fcfe. I don't speak of your 
 letters — " 
 
 " Oh, you know very well I never get letters 
 from any one but Madame Joubert; always the 
 same school news. The swine are welcome." 
 
 " I wish Fefe were so reasonable. He will be 
 furious, both about the letters and the mule. 
 And he will say 4- you know what reason he will 
 
Monsieur Motte. 125 
 
 give for it all — religion ; too much Mass. { He 
 will say he expected.it before, and I shall never 
 hear the end of it. Now, we, — because Gabi was 
 pious, and really, Eugenie, at times in church I 
 have watched him, he had moments of genuine 
 fervor, — we would say that his religion was a 
 reason why he should bring the mail well and 
 be a good servant; but not Fefe, he is so preju- 
 diced. It prevents everything." 
 
 Mademoiselle Aurore sighed and looked down 
 the avenue to the river, her thoughts sadly enu- 
 merating the calculations and hopes blighted by 
 Gabi's recalcitrance. Her thin, regular features 
 and sallow complexion showed the exhaustive 
 harassment of the past two days. 
 
 She and Madame Lareveillere had been to 
 school together, were amies dc cceur and toute 
 devoaees on every class-book, from the abecedaire 
 up to the " Histoire de France, "and their con- 
 fidences had followed the uninterrupted growth 
 of their hearts from dolls to sentiments. There 
 was a period when their hearts had been as bare 
 to each other as their faces ; but that was long, 
 long ago. Time, age, or self-consciousness had 
 since draped and obscured them one from the 
 
126 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 other. The abundant stream of their confessions 
 was being reduced to a clear, cool surface-rill 
 of generalities. One could only guess at the 
 changes that must have taken place in the other, 
 or try to compute them by covert observation, 
 furtive soundings, and silent criticism. Habit 
 now continued the links that bound them, and 
 prolonged the intimacy inaugurated by impulse. 
 They were together this summer after a longer 
 period of separation than usual. 
 
 Madame sighed with Mademoiselle Aurore, 
 but her sympathetic look was accompanied with 
 the private reflection :\ " Heavens ! what a dif- 
 ference a man makes in a woman's looks, — that 
 is, of course, a man who is not a brother, — 
 poor Aurore ! " , At school, Aurore's relations 
 with her sex had been as close as possible ; she 
 was la plies femme des femmes. Now, economical 
 Nature seemed stealthily recalling one by one 
 charms which had proved a useless, unprofitable 
 investment; flattening her chest, straightening 
 her curves, prosaicising her eyes, diluting her 
 voice; in short, despoiling the handmaiden of 
 Saint Catherine almost beyond the recognition 
 of her dearest friend. The little heart that once 
 
Monsieur Motte. 127 
 
 bounded so frankly forward toward orange blos- 
 soms was being led by religion now away from 
 mirrors, adornments, fripperies, and follies of 
 the flesh, away from Madame Lareveillere, away 
 from herself, down an austere path rugged with 
 artificial vicissitudes, where a crucifix and Gol- 
 gotha replaced the rose-winged visions of youth, 
 and hope offered the extinction in place of the 
 ■gratification of desire. 
 
 " Mamzelle, Monsieur Felix asks if you have 
 forgotten the key of the medicine chest? " 
 
 "Ah! la, la!" The suspended avalanche of 
 neglected commissions fell upon her. 
 
 " Mamzelle, Monsieur Felix asks — " 
 
 " I hear, Stasie, I hear." 
 
 She put her hand mechanically to her arm 
 for the key-basket. " Ah, yes, my key-basket, — 
 I have left it somewhere ; but where can I have 
 left it? " 
 
 " It is impossible, Mamzelle, to hear one 
 word you are saying." 
 
 " I was only talking to myself, Stasie." 
 
 " Plait-il? " 
 
 " Nothing, Stasie, nothing." 
 
 She screamed this beyond doubt of misunder- 
 
123 Monsieur hAotie. 
 
 standing, and went into the hall audibly wonder- 
 ing as to the whereabouts of her key-basket. 
 It was perhaps from accommodating her voice 
 to Stasie's increasing deafness, and her pa- 
 tience to the increasing obstinacy of this crab- 
 bed, peevish heritage, that both had become 
 so attenuated in Mademoiselle Aurore. 
 
 The master's house — the big house, as it was 
 metaphorically called — stood aloof in fastidious 
 isolation from, but_Jn wa tchful proxirnity withal 
 of, jthe money-making sugar-house and plebeian 
 quarters. It was not, — to the people on the 
 plantation at least, and few others ever came 
 nearer to it than the road in front, — it was not, 
 nor ever had been, simply a massive brick cot- 
 tage, with tall round pillars, a tiled basement, a 
 pointed, projecting roof, and deep, shady gal- 
 leries. It was not this nor any other techni- 
 cally defined edifice, any more than the altar 
 is a carpenter's contrivance to believers, or 
 Louis XIV. was a man of small stature to his 
 courtiers. It was never intended to be jan^ordi^ 
 nary, common dwelling-place for ordinary, com- 
 mon people, and time had respected the original^ 
 purpose. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 129 
 
 Changes had come into the world, and even 
 crept into the parish of St. Charles ; but a rigid 
 quarantine had kept all but the inevitable revo- 
 lutions of Nature and reform from the house 
 and its inmates, and had preserved in unbroken 
 transmission the atmosphere and s pirit of an 
 age which supplied adventurous noblemen with 
 principalities in a new world, and equipped 
 them with a princely largesse of power from_ 
 an old one. As far as bricks and mortar and 
 hand-sawed cypress boards and hand-made 
 nails could do it, they expressed here caste, 
 wealth, power, pride, government, religion. 
 Whatever the record of other similar houses 
 may be, this one had maintained its responsi- 
 bilities and sustained its traditions with a spirit 
 that Versailles might not have blushed to own 
 and imitate. The garden, with its carefully 
 planned star and crescent shaped beds, had 
 paths which a century ago connected them into 
 a milky way of loveliness and sweetness, — en- 
 couraging and inspiring walks for lovers ; but 
 now a riotous growth of roses had tangled them 
 into such a wilderness that the original gardener 
 would have needed divine guidance through 
 9 
 
130 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 his own work, and lovers ^- had there been any 
 
 now — would have been restricted to the broad 
 avenue leading from house to river without de- 
 viations or obscurities for either feet or hearts. 
 It was hedged all around with wild orange, ex- 
 cept in front, where the river was allowed a 
 glance at the gallery. What once_ had b een^a 
 gjateful shade- had-in^reased to_.a_da.mp gloom. 
 The magnolias and oaks had so abused their 
 privilege of growing, that they leaned their 
 branches against the very roof itself, and veiled 
 with their moss the little Gothic windows and 
 the observatory into complete inutility, fright- 
 ening away even the vivacious tendencies of 
 October from the front of the somnolent, su- 
 perannuated homestead. I Here it was always 
 seventeenth century and retrospection and re- 
 grets ; but on the other side of the house, where 
 the trees had been cut and the sun shone, the 
 breeze was welcome to frolic and sing ; there 
 it was always nineteenth century with the latest 
 change of date, for there were Monsieur Felix's 
 bedchamber and ofhce. I 
 
 There was a beautiful vista through the 
 orange-trees to the river, and there were ever- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 131 
 
 varying heights of rose and gold and lilac 
 overhead, — a mocking-bird sang in the shad- 
 ows of the neglected garden. Eugenie Lare- 
 veillere, balancing herself backward and forward 
 in the rocking-chair by the rosetted tip of her 
 slipper, saw nothing, heard nothing but herself. 
 Her muslin dress rose and fell light as the 
 clouds above her ; she held her chin in her hand 
 and pursued the thoughts interrupted by Aurore, 
 — thoughts which, since Monsieur Felix's illness, 
 had been allowed to gain more and more com- 
 plete possession of her, until it seemed that all 
 Nature had become a cheval-glass to reflect her ; 
 ^■and not to reflect merely the dainty piquante 
 I outward figure with vexing reminders of the 
 mutations of time and the mutability of woman, 
 \but her intirieur also, — the disordered interior 
 of one of the undecided sex in the throes o f a 
 decision. It is true she had come to the coun- 
 try for reflection, but she had managed to elude 
 it successfully until within the last two days. 
 In a week she would return to the city, — if 
 the summer could only have been prolonged 
 indefinitely ! The old allee at the school came 
 entrancingly before her, where she and Aurore — 
 
132 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 the pretty, poor little blonde and the pretty, 
 rich little brunette — used to promenade arm in 
 arm in the twilight, interchanging the deep 
 mysteries and experiences of their sixteen-year- 
 -old hearts. The confidences ceased as soon 
 as there was really something to confide. Ma- 
 dame longed for just one such twilight moment; 
 but[_the only allee was the broad one to the 
 river, and — they were not sixteen, and Aurore 
 could think of nothing but her religion, Gabi, 
 and sugar-making.^/ 
 
 "If I only had a friend, an adviser; ah! a 
 woman ought never to be without one, — two 
 in fact." 
 
 The evening was getting cool ; she tied her 
 handkerchief around her throat, and moved her 
 chair closer to the wall. 
 
 "If it were only a question of duty; There 
 was nothing a woman could not do for duty, or 
 religion ; that made marriage so much more 
 reasonable, so much less ridiculous, enfin; but 
 love ! " A rosy reflection from the clouds 
 fell all over her face, and she undid the hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 She could see her friends smile delicately, 
 
Monsieur Motte. 133 
 
 and raise their shoulders ever so slightly, and 
 hear the "ho! ho! ho! " of some irrepressible 
 commh'e. 
 
 "Love! what! she believes in it still? Elle 
 
 / 
 
 en vent, encore! what innocence, hem?" 
 
 " But is a woman's heart a thermometer to be 
 regulated according to outside appearances?" 
 > she asked herself, indignantly. " Ah ! if panvre 
 maman were here ! " 
 
 The tears came in her eyes, as they always 
 did at the remembrance of the pale, abraded 
 face and shrinking, poor, genteel figure of her 
 mother. Many an " All Saints " had passed 
 since she had placed her first chrysanthe- 
 mum bouquet and black bead souvenir be- 
 fore poor maman's tomb in the old St. Louis 
 Cemetery. 
 
 " If she were here, she would decide for 
 me! " 
 
 Eugenie had not been required to say even 
 a word to her fiance Lareveillere. He had 
 seen her at the exhibition of her school. She 
 played the harp and wore sleeves to fall back 
 off her arms, and her golden curls were all that 
 hid her neck. She had the dress still; poor 
 
134 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 maman made it, and trimmed it with the lace 
 from her own wedding dress. Poor maman 
 was only afraid that the fiance might change 
 his mind ; pas de chance! 
 
 And he whose companionship had been so 
 thorough an education in men and matrimony, — ■ 
 he had his bouquet and souvenir also on " All 
 Saints," and a Mass besides, just the same as 
 if — 
 
 " Whatever marriage is, it is least of all what 
 a school-girl thinks." 
 
 There was something else buried in the same 
 tomb, too, — seventeen years old, fresh and in- 
 nocent, shrouded in a bridal veil./ "Ah! if the 
 young only knew more, or the old less.^ These 
 thoughts always came to her with such peculiar 
 emphasis that the tears which usually rose over 
 " poor maman " fell over herself. 
 
 " The first time you go into it blind ; the sec- 
 ond, ha ! with microscopes over the eyes ! " 
 
 The old deaf Stasie came from under the 
 gallery and walked out in front with her conch 
 shell to blow the summons to supper. She was 
 stiff with rheumatism, and the wavering melan- 
 choly notes fell on the air like a Memento mori. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 135 
 
 With characteristic obstinacy she held to the 
 office intrusted to her when she was elastic and 
 graceful ; when her wrinkled skin was bright 
 smooth gold ; when her lips were full and red, 
 and her teeth white and firm as the shell they 
 clasped. That was before the trees were al- 
 lowed to overshadow the garden, and the moss 
 to hang in such mournful folds ; when the roses 
 were kept in subjection ; when the occupants of 
 the tombs under the clump of cypresses out 
 there, her masters and mistresses, hurried in 
 from fields, levee, and garden at her clear 
 resonant calls, — calls which easily vaulted the 
 broad stream and fell in musical cadence on the 
 opposite bank. 
 
 Marie Modeste caught the sound on the 
 levee,- and started as if she were still at school 
 and still punishable. 
 
 "Ate, Marcelite! the horn! I shall be late 
 again for supper." 
 
 Oh la nature! la belle nature! Marie had 
 written compositions on it, and learned poetry 
 about it; but that was before she and Racine 
 and Corneille had seen it. This was all dif- 
 ferent, — these sunsets and moon-risings, these 
 
136 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 clouds and stars and fields, the river, the trees, 
 the flowers, the animals, the poultry, the men 
 and women in the quarters, with their primeval 
 domesticity, the slow movements, the sudden 
 developments, the mysteries, the revelations, 
 the veils withdrawn, one after another, like the 
 mists from the river, until the great stream of 
 life lay bare before her awed gaze. How much 
 of the world lay outside the walls of St. Denis, 
 -unmentioned in geography or history ! How 
 much of God outside the Catechism! What 
 was a school life of fourteen years in compari- 
 son with a plantation life of three months ! 
 Her imagination had not prepared her for it ; 
 there was no end to thinking about it ; every 
 moment a new thought shone out in a blank 
 space like the stars in the sky, and still her 
 mind was not full. 
 
 She hurried through the quarters, nodding 
 to the women, speaking to the children, looking 
 for glimpses of the procession from the fields, 
 pursued by the persistent, vivid, recurring feel- 
 ing of having been there and done it all be- 
 fore, — the feeling which had thrilled her again 
 and again on the plantation, but never at school. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 137 
 
 (From the first day it had been natural for 
 her to talk to the negroes, go into their little 
 cabins, seek and respond to their confidences. 
 They accepted her too, spontaneously, as if 
 she had been their own Mamzelle by fact and 
 title. 
 
 Not. so jvyithMarcelite. Between her and her 
 people there was no good feeling; instead, the 
 distrust of a class toward a superior member of 
 jtj_and the disdain of an ascending m emb er t o- 
 ward_an inferior class. The men ignored her; 
 the women followed her with resentful eyes, and 
 whetted their tongues when she passed, taking 
 good care that their remarks should fall short 
 of retort, but not of hearing. 
 
 The brick-dust on the bare floor crackled 
 under Marie's feet as she hastily entered the 
 dining-room in the basement, almost expecting 
 to hear the customary, " Twenty-five lines by 
 heart, Mademoiselle." 
 
 Madame and Mademoiselle Aurore were at 
 the table ; Stasie was bringing in the large 
 glasses of cold boiled milk, with the heavy 
 cream wrinkling on top. A candelabra of two 
 candles illuminated the table, while its fellow 
 
138 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 dispelled the gloom of the tall mantel-piece, 
 and [enabled Mademoiselle Aurore's guests and 
 the portrait of_-hef— father to see each other 
 dimly. J There were very few_Hying„ojDeratiojis 
 in_jJi£__old_ ho4ise-J±iat__did_noLt.^go on in the 
 pres ence oj ^some^pictured Angely. They hung 
 in every room against the pale-green walls 
 variegated by damp and m ould. — a diminish- 
 ing line, nourished by constant intermarriage, 
 until Mademoiselle Aurore and Monsieur Felix 
 looked like their first Louisiana progenitors 
 seen through the small end of an opera-glass. 
 Mademoiselle Aurore was talking excitedly. 
 " Ma cJiere ! you will scarcely believe it; I can 
 hardly recover from the surprise myself. Talk 
 of changes ; that's a change. Fefe will actually 
 have to send to the city this roulaison for Ital- 
 ians, Italians ! " — she pronounced the name with 
 / every facial expression of disgust, — " Italians 
 \ to take off the crops ; if poor papa could see 
 Vthat ! " She looked with filial reverence at the 
 beardless youth in the gilt frame. Her papa 
 had been painted when at school in France, and 
 died too soon to leave a more parental representa- 
 tion of himself. " But, Stasie, give Mademoiselle 
 
Monsieur Motte. 139 
 
 Marie some fricassee, fricassee ! fricassee /[That 
 is what competition does, — negroes running from 
 place to place to get five cents more pay; and 
 it all comes from that old Simon and Mr. 
 SmithJ What more can you expect? They do 
 not care ; they have no sentiment. A planta- 
 tion is a sugar factory to them, that is all. j_The 
 idea that such canaille should be allowed to 
 profit by the ruin of our old families, and buy 
 up the finest places in Louisiana ! j Oh, they 
 can afford to offer more to negroes than others, 
 and force us to hire Italians! Old Simon: 
 
 Stasie can tell you who old Simon is; you 
 ought to hear Stasie talk about him. She 
 remembers the day well when he used to go up 
 and down the coast with a pack on his back, 
 crying Rabais, and selling things to the ne- 
 groes ; /it is only right that he should pay them 
 well now, — he made them pay enough, vas ! 
 and now he owns La Trin ite. And Mr. Smith, 
 tiens ! Eugenie, you remember Nathalie Cortez 
 at school ; you know when she graduated ! 
 Well, her daughter has just been married to 
 this Mr. Smith. Don't repeat it as coming from 
 me, you know, but," she lowered her voice, 
 
140 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " his father was a negro trader, — a negro trader, 
 my dear ! absolutely a man Nathalie would not 
 have permitted to sit at the table with her. 
 Stasie knows ; you ask Stasie. That 's what 
 poverty does." Her face was red and her eyes 
 gleamed with excitement. 
 
 " I cannot hear a word you say, Mamzelle," 
 said Stasie, in despair. " If you would only 
 speak a little more distinctly, instead of getting 
 excited." 
 
 " The pain-perdu ! pain-perdu ! " screamed 
 Mademoiselle Aurore, eagerly profiting by the 
 opportunity. " And Fefe, he exasperates me so ! 
 Whatever old Simon or Mr. Smith gets, Fefe 
 thinks he must buy too, — vacuum-pans, con- 
 densers, steam-trains, bagasse-burners, a perfect 
 ' galimatias ' of machinery. As if gentlemen 
 needed all that; and as if they had not been 
 making sugar long enough in Louisiana without 
 it ! For my part, I like the old open kettles, 
 and I prefer the sugar, too, though it was not so 
 white, — and Stasie, she prefers it too. In poor 
 papa's time it was all so different; butj Felix has 
 his own ideas. He loves everything modern 
 and new ; he js_all for the practical. ] The house 
 
Monsieur Motte. 141 
 
 and garden might just as well be in Texas, for 
 all he cares about them ; and then, after all, if old 
 Simon or Mr. Smith makes sugar a little whiter 
 than ours, or sells it a little bit higher, oh, then 
 it is Good Friday the rest of the winter ! But, 
 ' Mon cher,' I tell him, ' think who they are.' " 
 
 " Monsieur Felix asks Mamzelle to come 
 there just one moment," said Edmond, Stasie's 
 brother, putting his head inside the door. 
 
 " Oh, I know what it is, — it is that estimate 
 I forgot to copy. Saris excuses, che'rie; you see 
 how it is." 
 
 Before Monsieur Felix's illness it was very 
 gay after supper, sitting on the gallery watch- 
 ing the shooting-stars above the river, talking 
 abj>uL-jald^.iimgs_^fl/7/ la^guerre^ or playing 
 dominos in the hall for bon-bons ; but now 
 it was sadness itself. Madame and Marie went 
 up the winding steps to the gallery to await 
 Mademoiselle Aurore and her never-ceasing 
 thejT^_of_j)2-antation crises. The moon had 
 risen, and changed the landscape from the showy 
 splendor of sunset to a weird etherealization. 
 The rose-vines, which had crept over from the 
 garden to garland and wreathe the brick pillars, 
 
I4 2 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 threw fantastic, flitting shadows on the gallery 
 floor, and checkered their faces. The broad 
 path to the river was silver, the tall gate-posts 
 were whitened into marble monuments, the river 
 was a boundless sea of golden ripples. The 
 faint sounds of animated life in the quarters 
 made the loneliness and silence inside the wild- 
 orange hedge more intense. Madame sank 
 in her rocking-chair for another seance with 
 herself: — 
 
 " Marie was young, Marie could have ideals, 
 Marie could yet. dream in the moonlight, un- 
 chidden by life and experience." 
 
 She looked at the slight, childish figure, seated 
 on the balustrade, leaning her head far back in 
 her arms, looking up, beyond the moss, the 
 trees, and the clouds, to follow the moon making 
 and unmaking phantasmagorial cities, lakes, and 
 mountains in the world above her, — lost in an 
 ecstasy of self-forgetfulness, drifting away from 
 earth and mortality, soaring higher and higher 
 on the wings of a pure, fresh imagination, until 
 the glorious orb itself is reached, and the silver 
 rays make her one of themselves. 
 
 She envied morbidly the pure spirituality 
 
Monsieur Motte. 143 
 
 which yet enveloped the young girl, her un- 
 spotted cleanliness of simplicity, her virgin igno- \ 
 ranee of the quantities in the problem of life, her 
 incapacity for calculation. There were surprises 
 yet in store for her, there was still an unknown 
 before her. Whatever misfortune had done to 
 her, could do to her^her seventeen years had been 
 protected and were flawless in their innocence. | 
 
 " Ll vas once like Marie, and she will one day be 
 like me. Why must women be always looking 
 for the unattainable, — why cannot we be con- 
 tented? Enfin, — one cannot always be seven- 
 teen and wear white dresses ; but if it is the will 
 of God, why must we have these feelings, these 
 moments, for example? \She will know it all, 
 she will crave to know it, and then, like me, she 
 will crave acquittance of the knowledge and the < 
 refreshment of ignorance again. It is always 
 with us women the fight between the heart and 
 the soul. ' The_ happy ones are born without the 
 one or the other." 
 
 As through the intervening shadows of the 
 trees she could see the dazzling river, so be- 
 yond her present doubts and hesitations a tran- 
 scendental prospect offered itself; but sarcastic 
 
144 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 society and frigid friends came between to be 
 propitiated by sophistical reasonings and pro- 
 saic excuses. Aurore particularly, — if Aurore 
 were only sympathetic as she used to be ! But 
 to a woman who scorned one honeymoon, what 
 .reasons would justify two? 
 
 " I shall not tell her, — that I am determined; 
 she shall not find it out, until — I would rather 
 c onfid e in Marcelite." 
 
 The hairdresser, in her silk apron and white 
 kerchief, passed on tiptoe, not to disturb her, 
 holding her stiff calico dress to keep it from 
 rattling; she went to Marie. 
 
 " Be'be ! " she whispered. 
 
 The girl took no notice of her. 
 
 "Bebe/" 
 
 " Paix, Marcelite, paix." She barely moved 
 her lips ; it was so delicate, so exquisite, a breath 
 would destroy it, — her moon-dream. 
 
 " You will catch cold." 
 
 " Ah, Marcelite ! " she said entreatingly, "why 
 could you not have left me one moment more? 
 Now — " She sighed, and turned her eyes up- 
 ward once again. 
 
 Marcelite advanced to the edge of the balus- 
 
Monsieur Matte. 145 
 
 trade and looked up too, to see what attraction 
 the commonplace moon was offering. She knew 
 that when the moon was on the increase it was 
 a good time to cut the ends of the hair, and 
 some persons could read the bon aventure in the 
 moonlight, and the Voudous — she made the 
 sign of the cross whenever she thought of them, 
 although her experience had proved it a very 
 insufficient protection against their charms. She 
 asked herself, eying Marie from under her heavy 
 lids, why her bebe looked so thin and pale. 
 She was smaller and lighter even than when at 
 school ; after three months in the country, too ! 
 and her eyes with the same hollow black shad- 
 ows, — why did not those shadows go, now that 
 studying was all done and life was so pleasant? 
 A fierce impatience and rebellion surged in her 
 as usual when confronted by what she could 
 not understand or prevent. Other girls were 
 women in appearance at Marie's age; why did 
 she not shed her childhood also ? Why did not 
 her arms round and her shoulders soften? Why 
 could not some of her own exuberant flesh and 
 blood be given to her bebe ? She did not want 
 it; she would like to tear it off and fling it away, 
 10 
 
146 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 if her bebe were to be always so che'tive, so triste. 
 One sickness — 
 
 " Bebe," she whispered, her voice trembling 
 at the thought; "you will catch cold, or fever, 
 the air is so bad at this season." 
 
 " There, I hope you are satisfied now ! " Marie 
 said irritably, jumping down, and grumbling to 
 herself, " If Marcelite would only let her alone ! 
 The moonlight was so beautiful, and at school 
 they never enjoyed the moonlight except in 
 contraband. In a week she would be back at 
 school. Why could not Marcelite let her for- 
 get that ; it was so seldom she could forget it ! 
 Marcelite never thought about it, nor Madame 
 either, but she — " she had rehearsed it so often, 
 the whole scene came before her in a flash. 
 
 11 Tic ns, voila Marie Modeste, back again at 
 school ! mats, chere, is le vieux going to make 
 you stay another year? Quelle injustice /" She 
 would shrug her shoulders, and say_Jji_an_ in- 
 different way^^just^as if it were a matter of 
 course, " Ah ! you know, it is a romance, — all 
 a romance of Marcelite's. My papa, he was 
 killed during the war, my mamma, she died 
 when I was a baby, and Marcelite — just fancy, 
 
Monsieur Motte. 147 
 
 chere, that good Marcelite — worked for me night 
 and day, to send me to school ; she it was who 
 gave me everything." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders, straightened her 
 head, and her lips moved rapidly, just as if she 
 were at school, only the tightness came right 
 across her chest, always just at this point, and 
 she had to swallow very rapidly to keep the 
 tears from coming to her eyes ; for the impor- 
 tant thing was not to cry, not to let them sus- 
 pect. Oh, she had learned at school not to cryj_^ 
 even Madame Joubert, when she used to stand 
 her in the corner with the foolscap on, for mak- 
 ing faults in her dictation, could not make her 
 cry when she^was a little girl, — and she was a 
 woman now. I Did Marcelite think she was afraid 
 of the fever? If it would only come and kill her 
 before next week, it w_ould be better, far better. 
 What had she to — " 
 
 " I shall go to bed f^come, Marcelite." It was 
 better, anyway, to be in the bed, in the dark, all 
 by herself. She stopped to kiss Madame good- 
 night, — Madame in her pretty toilette, with her 
 rings and laces and ribbons. Ah ! God was 
 good to Madame ; she did not have such things 
 
148 Monsieur Mo tie. 
 
 to think about. " Why, after all, did He select 
 precisely her to orphan, and make her credulous 
 simply to be deceived? Who was to be fur- 
 thered or bettered by the experiment upon her? 
 Could the same Providence create a Marie Mo- 
 deste and a Madame Lareveillere? " 
 
 " Bonne-unit, ma mignonne ; going to Mass 
 again to-morrow morning?" 
 
 [For Mademoiselle Aurore had drawn Marie 
 into the active routine of her religious exercises 
 Masses, confessions, communions, retreats, pen- 
 ances, novenas, fastings ; they had discouraged 
 the kindly efforts of Nature in behalf of her 
 physical improvement, but her mind reflected 
 the benefit of the discipline by a satisfactory 
 state of quiescence. ] There were moments of 
 transcendental serenity accorded to her when 
 suffering appeared the only proper joy, and 
 martyrdom the only proper vocation of women; 
 but after a long walk, or a visit to the quarters, 
 and talking to the women there, or the moon- 
 light, as at present, they vanished, — these mo- 
 ments ; and the lives of the saints she yearned 
 to imitate, — her heart rejected them; and their 
 being exposed to the jeering multitude, or 
 
Monsieur Motte. 149 
 
 thrown to beasts, — what was that to going back 
 to St. Denis? \ She was at the pitiable agejvyh en 
 sensitiveness is a disease, before moral courage 
 has had time to develop. " You are happy, ma 
 fille ? " Madame drew the face again to her 
 lips ; she loved to hear it confirmed. 
 
 "I, Madame? happy!" 
 
 "But, of course, Marie is going to Mass with 
 me to-morrow." 
 
 Mademoiselle Aurore answered the question 
 she ha*d heard in the hall. The moon poured 
 its effulgence on her pious, enthusiastic face as, 
 an hour afterward, from her seat on the stair- 
 case, she was still eloquently extolling to her 
 friend the celestial peace vouchsafed to those 
 women and only to those women, who, renounc- 
 ing with fortitude the pleasures of sex and youth, 
 forsake the world and consecrate themselves to 
 the perfect vocation of perpetual virginity and 
 prayer, thus preparing their souls for those 
 beatitudes in a future life reserved solely for 
 the pure and undefiled. 
 
 " Madame is as bad as Marcelite," thought 
 Marie in her chamber; " but what can they sup- 
 pose I am thinking of all the time?" She had 
 
150 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 only monosyllables for the kindly services and 
 inquiries of the nurse. 
 
 " Is anything the matter with you, be'be' f" 
 
 " Nothing, Marcelite." 
 
 " You are sure you feel well? " 
 
 "Oh yes, I feel well." 
 
 " Let me get you a glass of sirup and water." 
 
 " No, thank you, Marcelite." 
 
 " Did you hear about that little rascal Gabi? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Edmond should give him a good whipping; 
 the idea of Mademoiselle Aurore hiding him in 
 her room ! She spoils him until he is perfectly 
 good for nothing." But, as usual, it seemed 
 impossible to awake an interest in Marie. 
 
 Was it to be always that way? Would she 
 never open her heart to Marcelite? What could 
 she be thinking of all the time, — was it hatred 
 and contempt of her nurse ? Then let her say it. 
 Better the loud-mouthed fury and passion of her 
 own people down there in the quarters, than this 
 apathetic white silence. Oh for one moment 
 of equality and confidence ! 
 
 "You like it here on the plantation, be'be '?" 
 " You think perhaps I prefer boarding-school ? " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 151 
 
 " Ah, but wait till you see the grinding ! That 
 is the grand time of the year on a plantation ! 
 Some night, soon, a frost will come ; in the gray 
 daylight it will look like flour sprinkled all over 
 the cane; then, when it gets lighter, it looks 
 like silver; when the sun gets on it, it is dia- 
 monds, diamonds scattered everywhere. Then 
 you hear the cane-knives, cling! clang! cling! 
 clang! and the cane falling, fron! fron! fron! 
 fron! One cut at the top, one cut at the roots, 
 over it goes ! Each hand takes a row ; I tell 
 you the women are not behind the men then ! 
 I have seen them keep up, step by step, twenty 
 rows at a time ! A field soon gets fiat and bare 
 at that rate ; then the carts coming and going, 
 dumping their loads in the shed, the sugar- 
 mill with all steam up ; and the cane-carrier, 
 — you will hear them sing at the cane-carrier ! 
 You never heard singing like that, all day, all 
 night." 
 
 Did Marie hear or not? 
 
 " That will be fine, eh, bcbe ? " 
 
 She only shook her head. 
 
 " The river ran in front of the old plantation^ 
 just as it does here," Marcelite continued coura- 
 
152 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 geously. " And the orange-trees went in long 
 rows to the levee. The flower-garden was here, 
 the fields over there, and the quarters on this 
 side," indicating the localities by gesture. " But 
 it was finer, grander. Ah, the Motte plantation 
 was celebrate^TT^^yoTI^atr^p^and down the 
 coast. The quarters were like a street in the 
 city, the sugar-house looked as big as the cus- 
 tom-house. The largest boats on the river would 
 stop at our levee for the sugar and molasses. 
 The dwelling-house was twice the size of this, 
 and the furniture, four, five, ten times hand- 
 somer. The armoires were filled with laces and 
 silks and feathers left by the mamans, grand- 
 mamans, the aunts and cousins who were dead 
 and gone. There were pictures all over the 
 wails, like here, only Mottes and Viels ; and this," 
 pointing to a framed escutcheon, " was on every- 
 thing, — silver, china, glass — " A thousand 
 daily contacts had revivified what had sunk into 
 indistinctness in her memory. She could have 
 talked all night and not have exhausted her 
 enumeration. "And the books! tiens! There' 
 was one book I will never forget; it was full 
 of pictures about — " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 153 
 
 " Good-night, ma bonne; I am afraid Madame 
 may need you." 
 
 " Bebe',_\t was your home! Why ^don-'Lyou 
 listen? — WJiy_djcui!t_you_believe me? Do you 
 think I would lie to you about that f " She had 
 not the courage— to— *ay the words, though they 
 sprang not only to her mouth but to her eyes ; 
 her very hands tried to gesticulate the appeal. 
 No ! As if she were a dog, or a lying negro 
 caught-stealing, she crept away. 
 
 Why should it be-€hffeTent with Madame? She 
 had only been her paid servant, wet she was not 
 ashamed before her, she could talk to her. \ And 
 why should Madame believe her unquestion- 
 ingly; yes, and give her confidences too? 
 
 " Madame, she will die ! It will kill her ! I 
 knew it ! I knew it that night ! It will choke 
 her heajtjto jdeath. Ah, the Mottes are proud! 
 You never saw people like them ! She loves 
 me no more ! I see that, — she hates me ! She 
 believes not a word I say ! My God ! My God ! " 
 
 Never a word of her sacrifices, her gener- 
 osities, only the remorse of an impotent ser- 
 vant over disgrace and failure in a committed 
 trust. 
 
154 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " She does not eat, she does not sleep, she 
 lies there at night, thinking, thinking, thinking. 
 I know; I sit outside her door and listen to her. 
 She sighs and sometimes she cries; ghecalls on 
 the Virgin. The Virgin! " with sudden jealousy. 
 " As if the Virgin would do more for her than I ! 
 As if the Virgin could love her more, — as if God 
 could love her more than I ! She never calls 
 for Marcelite, not once ! Not once ! It is bet- 
 ter for me to kill myself, to throw myself in the 
 river ! Going to Mass ! going to confession ! 
 going to communion ! ' Mademoiselle Aurore 
 will persuade her into a convent, will make 
 a nun of her, — a nun ! " /her strong physical 
 nature shuddering__at_the thought of asceticism. 
 " There is to be, then, no future, no home, no 
 husband, no children for her, — no pleasure?" 
 
 And so it was Marie Modeste, not Eugenie 
 Lareveillere, who occupied Madame's mind the 
 rest of the night. 
 
 , "And I promised to be a mother to her! " 
 She would not have been a woman if self-accu- 
 sation had not come to salt the wounds caused 
 by the sufferings of others. 
 
 The slight excitement of breakfast had worn 
 
Monsieur Motte. 155 
 
 away, the next day, which so far was bringing 
 forth ameliorating modifications of the condi- 
 tions of its predecessor. Monsieur Felix's sci- 
 atica was on the wane, — both his confidence in 
 himself and Mademoiselle Aurore's trust in the 
 saints being justified. A slight frost in the 
 morning, the first of the season, encouraged her 
 and cheered her brother; it sweetened the cane 
 and acknowledged her prayers. Slight frosts 
 now on the magnificent stand in the field, and 
 Bel Angely would surpass any former record. 
 The normal, monotonous uniformity was settling 
 over the house, hiding the traces of the late 
 disruption of its harmony. There was still the 
 sound of footfalls passing up and down the back 
 steps to and from Monsieur Felix's room ; but if 
 the door chanced to be left open now, only the 
 calmest voice in the most business-like tones 
 could be distinguished, giving needful commands 
 and directions. Mademoiselle Aurore's time was 
 no longer fractured by importunate calls. 
 
 The friends sat in their rocking-chairs in the 
 broad hall,' dimmed to a comfortable compro- 
 mise between the contesting claims of their eyes 
 and complexions. A round mosaic table, with 
 
156 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 brass claw feet, held their work-baskets. Made- 
 moiselle Aurore was adding highly ornamental 
 golden leaves to red paper roses, to be twisted, 
 according to ecclesiastical convention, into flat 
 pyramidal displays for the parish church, — a 
 commencement in the liquidation of her indebt- 
 edness. Notwithstanding her confidence in her 
 own rectitude of purpose, and her intimate ne- 
 gotiations with the Church, she would have felt 
 more serenity this morning had she not sent 
 Gabi for the mail yesterday, or had she frankly 
 told Monsieur Felix all about it. He was im- 
 proving so fast, she would have to tell him to- 
 day; by to-morrow he would find it all out by 
 himself. Thank Heaven ! the mule at least had 
 come home during the night. 
 
 "Oh, chh'e amie ! " she was saying, "I get 
 very much discojjraged-wdth^Jife^I assure you ; 
 it takes a great -deal__of religion to enable us 
 women to support it. It is so full of contradic- 
 tions, — useless contradictions. I sometimes wish 
 that there were no more hopes given us. They 
 are no better than toy balloons ; they dance be- 
 fore us very beautifully for a time, then crac! 
 they burst, and we are left plantces there until 
 
Monsieur Motte. 157 
 
 we get another one. I do not complain, it is 
 against my religion; but if you knew how many 
 hopes I have seen go to pieces that way ! Mon 
 Dieu! I am tired of getting new ones. Ah, you 
 are fortunate, your life is so simple, so clear, so 
 smooth. Now, there 's Gabi, I should not have 
 sent him ; ah ! I see that clearly this morning. 
 But I Jiave raised that child ever since he was 
 a baby. He was picked up in the sugar-house 
 and brought to me. I have no idea even who 
 his mother is. Well, I thought I would take 
 him and make a reasonable humaji being of 
 Jbtim. Fefe and Stasie were against it, of course ; 
 they have never liked him. I wanted to push 
 him ; I thought I would__gjve_hjm the oppor- 
 tunity. Well, perhaps Fefe is right, after all. 
 And he learned his Catechism so well, and made 
 such a good first communion ! Last spring, you \ 
 know what I did? I got all the children of the 
 proper age in the quarters, I taught them the 
 Catechism myself, and I made them all make 
 their first communion; there was a cane-cart 
 full. Fefe and Stasie were against that too, but 
 I was firm. Ah, it is so elevating to work like 
 that ! FeTe, he said they were rascals already, 
 
158 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 and that/I would only make hypocrites of them. 
 Hypocrites ! I ask^you, Eugenie, if religion 
 makes_Jiypocrites ? /But that is Monsieur Vol- 
 taire again. I will never hear the last of this 
 from Stasie, and next spring Fefe will only be 
 more determined ; I know Fefe." 
 
 Madame shook her head responsively. Marie's 
 surprised, pained interrogation, Mademoiselle 
 Aurore's discourse, Marcelite's voluble despair, 
 had procured for her a sleepless, penitential night. 
 She was disposed this morning for any pessim- 
 istic generalities on women, but answered not so 
 much Mademoiselle Aurore as her own self: — 
 
 " Yes, our lives are surprise-boxes to us 
 women; we never know what is going to come 
 out_pf_them : our own plans, our own ideas 
 count for nothing. Look at our schoolmates : 
 not one turned out as she expected. Those who 
 had a vocation to religious lives, who would be 
 nothing but nuns, they were the first ones mar- 
 ried and having children christened. Those who 
 were ready to fall in love with every new tenor 
 at the opera, they became devotes. Those who 
 cared only for money fell in love with poor men ; 
 and those who made their lives a poem, with love 
 
Monsieur Motte. 159 
 
 for the hero, they, — they married for money. 
 When we are old and passees, we get what would 
 have made our youth divine. Men are the serious 
 occujjation, women are the playthings, of fate." 
 
 " Ah, yes, men are more fortunate." Made- 
 moiselle Aurore eagerly availed herself of the 
 fissure in which to insert her peculiar complaint. 
 " There is something sure, something stable in 
 a man's life. Look at Fefe. I do not say he 
 has not had griefs, disappointments, misfortunes 
 even, in his life, but they did not change it, only 
 interrupted it a minute ; with me, those things 
 take away my life itself." Her voice quivered, 
 and the emotion in her face made her look some- 
 thing as she did at sixteen. She took a long 
 breath and resumed : " It is like this : either Fefe 
 would not have sent Gabi for the mail, or Gabi 
 would have brought it properly, or he would 
 have informed the whole world about it, me first 
 of all, coiite que coute. He would not have man- 
 aged the truth on account of my prejudices, he 
 would have had no hopes attached to it; now 
 with me — " She was going to open her heart 
 a little lower down to Madame, and reveal those 
 hopes so paltry as to be involved in Gabi's good 
 
160 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 conduct, so grand as to influence a terrestrial and 
 celestial future. Mondaine as, to her disappoint- 
 ment, she had found Eugenie to be, she could 
 well remember the angelic devotion of the little 
 wife to that old roue Lareveillere. How pa- 
 tiently she had labored with him after the stroke 
 of paralysis confined him night and day to his 
 house ; teaching him the graces of repentance, 
 leading him to the altar he had deserted, per- 
 suading him to the sacraments he had mocked, 
 forcing him — actually forcing him — to give 
 to charity a goodly portion of that inheritance 
 she had so hardly earned. Whatever small 
 prospect of heaven the old French merchant 
 now enjoyed, he owed it to Eugenie, and no 
 one else. Aurore was determined to drive Mes- 
 sieurs Voltaire and Rousseau from the heart of 
 Monsieur Felix. Eugenie could not but sym- 
 pathize and encourage her. 
 
 And Madame, — at the quiver of her friend's 
 voice, the softening of her face, the old allh and 
 the twilight came before her, and she felt that 
 she might perhaps venture — 
 
 " Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta ! " A tiny staccato rap, 
 light as the pecking of a bird. The ladies raised 
 
Monsieur Motte. 161 
 
 their heads simultaneously with a nervous start. 
 It had a preternatural sound, so sudden, just at 
 that moment. There it was again ! 
 
 " But, Eugenie, what can that be? " Aurore 
 looked accusingly at the row of kinsmen and 
 kinswomen gleaming on the wall in their heavy 
 gilt frames. 
 
 Eugenie held her hand against her heart. 
 " How it frightened me ! It must be some one 
 knocking." 
 
 " Some one knocking at the front door ? 
 Impossible ! " 
 
 " Some one, perhaps, to see Monsieur Felix." 
 
 "Felix? But his visitors all know they have to 
 go around to the other gallery. There it is again ! " 
 
 " Maybe it is some one who does not know." 
 
 " I will call Stasie." 
 
 " But let us see who it is." 
 
 " Not for the world ! It might be something 
 horrible out there." 
 
 She dropped her flowers and commenced a 
 shrill, " Stasie ! Stasie ! " from the very table, 
 continuing it to the back gallery and out into 
 the yard to some inaudible distance. Madame 
 had disappeared when they returned together. 
 ii 
 
1 62 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " Go, ma bonne Stasie. It must be some one 
 to see Monsieur Felix; conduct him around to 
 the other side of the house." 
 
 The door was carefully unbolted, and Stasie, 
 with all imaginable precautions against sudden 
 assault, put her head out. 
 
 " But what are you doing, Stasie?" screamed 
 Mademoiselle Aurore, as she saw the door 
 steadily open. She had not time for the ac- 
 customed iteration, but was forced to escape 
 unceremoniously into Madame Lareveillere's 
 room to escape the view of the intruder. Ma- 
 dame was unbuttoning her peignoir. 
 
 "What do you think? " Aurore was excited, 
 or she would not have been guilty of the filial 
 impiety. " That sotte Stasie has actually opened 
 the front door, and there is a stranger, at this 
 moment, in the hall. But no ; impossible ! " — as 
 \she heard a stiff door being pushed open — "in 
 the parlor ! She has invited him into the parlor !" 
 
 " Mamzelle," said Stasie, coming into the 
 room. 
 
 " Well, Stasie, I compliment you ! Letting 
 a^stranger into „the 4*euse-J:his way ! " Made- 
 moiselle Aurore's voice was strident; the tone 
 
Monsieur Motte. 163 
 
 rather than the words penetrated to the ears 
 so tightly bandaged by the faded bandanna. 
 
 "What do you mean by opening the house 
 this way? Are you crazy?" 
 
 "He is a. gentleman — a visitor." Then, as 
 the full meaning of Mademoiselle Aurore's 
 attack came to her, she raised her voice, queru- 
 lously: " Comment done? Would you have me 
 shut the door in his face? Would you have 
 me drive him away — a gentleman — when he 
 comes on a visit? " 
 
 "What nonsense! A visitor! " She turned 
 to her friend for a dispassionate opinion. 
 
 "What! You are undressing, Eugenie?" 
 
 " Only changing my peignoir, Aurore. The 
 air seems a little cool to me." 
 
 " You must understand, Stasie, there is some 
 mistake. If he does not come to see Mon- 
 sieur Felix on business, he must be going to 
 old Simon's or Mr. Smith's. Go and explain 
 to him — although you should have told him on 
 the gallery, not brought him into the house." 
 She uttered the words emphatically, close to 
 Stasie's ear, and pushed her gently out of the 
 door. " If Stasie would only allow me to get 
 
164 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 a younger servant ! " she exclaimed, when the 
 door closed. 
 
 "There, Mamzelle, there; see for yourself!" 
 the old woman returned, thrusting a visiting- 
 card before her mistress's eyes as if she were as 
 blind as she, Stasie, was deaf. " Ah, I told you 
 so ! Shut the door in his face ! Put him out by 
 the shoulders ! Ah, that was not the etiquette 
 of your grandmother, par exemple ! " 
 
 Marcelite had come in by another door. She 
 slipped behind Madame and whispered some- 
 thing in her ear. 
 
 " Mais qiiest-ce que c'est que ga? " Mademoi- 
 selle Aurore looked perfectly nonplussed. " I 
 cannot understand it. Monsieur — " 
 
 " My neglige from Paris," whispered Madame 
 to Marcelite, so that Mademoiselle Aurore 
 could not notice it. 
 
 " Monsieur Armand Goupilleau. Goupilleau? 
 Goupilleau? But I never heard of a Goupilleau. 
 And you, Eugenie?" 
 
 "Monsieur Armand Goupilleau? Surely I 
 know Monsieur Armand Goupilleau. He is a 
 notary public in New Orleans — oh, but one 
 of the most celebrated notaries there ! He is 
 
Monsieur Motte. 165 
 
 a good, good friend of mine, an old friend. He 
 advises me about all my affairs; and an institute 
 like the St. Denis requires a great deal of ad- 
 vice, I can tell you. Do I know him? I should 
 think so. He is like a father to me, in fact." 
 
 Marcelite dropped the negligi over her head. 
 " Just tie this ribbon for me, ma bonne." Her 
 thin, white fingers, with the long, pointed nails, 
 could only wander aimlessly amid the bows and 
 laces. But the hairdresser needed neither direc- 
 tions nor explanations. Her dark face glowed 
 with intelligence; sh^e^e^med^ransforrried by 
 a sudden illumination ; her deft, light fingers 
 never worked so felicitously, pulling out lace, 
 tying ribbon, putting in ear-rings, lifting up a 
 puff here and pinning a curl there until the 
 whole expression of the coiffure was reanimated, 
 passing a powder-puff over the pale face, brush- 
 ing out the eyebrows, rummaging through a 
 sadiet for the appropriate handkerchief. 
 
 "Is he married, Eugenie?" 
 
 "But no, Aurore. — What brutality!" she 
 thought. 
 
 " Ah ! " Aurore opened the door for them 
 to go out. 
 
1 66 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " One moment, Madame," whispered Mar- 
 celite. She was kneeling on the floor with 
 a pair of high-heeled bronze slippers in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Ah, I knew it ! Marcel ite is more of a 
 woman than Aurore." 
 
 The neglige hung in long, beautiful, diapha- 
 nous folds, and exhaled a delicate fragrance of 
 vetyver, as Marcelite shut the door on both 
 ladies. 
 
 Madame took the initiative, with effusion. 
 
 "Ah, mon ami! what a delightful surprise! 
 Never could you come at a better time." She 
 held both hands to him. " Let me present you 
 to my friend, my best friend, my old school- 
 mate, my sister in fact, Mademoiselle Angely. 
 Chere Aurore, this is my good friend Monsieur 
 Goupilleau, of whom you have heard me speak 
 so often. Now you will tell us what good fairy 
 sent you to the parish of St. Charles." 
 
 " As I said in the note which yesterday Mon- 
 sieur your brother received — " began the 
 notary in courteous explanation. 
 
 "Ah, mon Dicu ! That is the beginning — " 
 exclaimed Mademoiselle Aurore. " Gabi ! I 
 
Monsieur Motte. i6y 
 
 must tell Felix immediately." She abruptly 
 left the room, Monsieur Goupilleau bowing be- 
 fore her. Madame's vivacity fled with her; the 
 social graces, which hung like a silken domino 
 around her, seemed to vanish, leaving her as 
 undisguised and embarrassed in her natural 
 emotion as a peasant before the questioning, 
 expectant eyes of the notary. 
 
 " And you also did not receive my letter 
 yesterday? " 
 
 " No; as you hear, an accident — " 
 
 He took her indiscreet hand and guided her 
 through the twilight of the large parlors to a 
 sofa. It was) a letter that had cost him an effort 
 to write, — the wording of inexhaustible senti- 
 ment. I He could never speak what he had tran- 
 scribed alone in his quiet office, her image before 
 him, musty official records around him, and a 
 companionless life behind him. His heart, his 
 eager, long-suppressed heart, drove the clean, 
 sharp, steel notarial pen, and what had it not 
 said? So, it was all lost by an accident! but 
 it had contained one affair of business. 
 
 " Madame Joubert has made a proposition to 
 purchase your interest in the St. Denis." 
 
1 68 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " Madame Joubert ! " Madame Lareveillere 
 repeated in supreme astonishment. Madame 
 Joubert at the head of her brilliant aristocratic 
 pension ! ! Why, she had not a single qualifica- 
 tion, nothing, except an education^ The item of 
 business brought reprieve, but also disappoint- 
 ment. \ Had she, then, been wrong in her intui- 
 tions, premature in her expectations?^/ 1 
 
 " And Mademoiselle Motte? " 
 
 " Ah, Marie Modeste ! " The sweet, novel, 
 motherly look came into her eyes, — the one 
 beautiful expression of which life had hitherto 
 deprived them. 
 
 " Mon ami, how can I tell you ! When I 
 think of Marcelite I am ashamed of myself, — 
 I who am white and have an education. Ah, 
 I detest myself; but you see I was thinking so 
 much of my own affairs." 
 
 A blush that must have been caused by her 
 thoughts sprang from her heart and spread up 
 to her face, and warmed even the tips of her 
 chilled fingers. 
 
 " Aurore knew it, Aurore felt it to be a truth. 
 And I promised to be a mother to her — " 
 
 "And I," said the notary, " a father." 
 
Monsieur Motte. 169 
 
 " Would a mother forget her child, a young 
 girl, for her own affairs? " It was a chaplet of 
 self-reproach, the penitential accumulation of a 
 wakeful, feverish night, exaggerated, incoherent. 
 "But I thought she was happy; she is so 
 young, you know." 
 
 She raised her eyes to his. The swine, not 
 she, had received his letter, but his eyes con- 
 tained it all, and were repeating it over and over 
 again to the hair, the head, the face, the figure 
 beside him, — those wonderful, eloquent eyes of 
 a recluse poet; and she read it all, and could 
 not feign misunderstanding. His timid, hesitat- 
 ing words were entirely superfluous so long as 
 she looked at him ; but her own eyes — it was 
 safer to turn them on the piano. The diamonds 
 gleamed on her excited fingers. Last night, 
 when she could not sleep, she had composed it 
 all — she always prepared her pretty speeches 
 and notes beforehand for possible emergencies^. 
 It was to be a consent, — oh, yes, there had never 
 been any doubt about that, — but a consent based 
 on the exalted motives of duty and self-sacrifice, 
 and a common obligation toward Marie Mo- 
 deste ; a consent expressive of all that she did 
 
170 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 not feel ; I one worthy of Mademoiselle Aurore, 
 and unobjectionable to th e most fastidious wit 
 of a sarcastic society ._ Her fluent tongue recited 
 the chef-d'ceuvre as if her friends had all been 
 there to listen, were stationed behind the heavy 
 curtains to hear. Only the notary himself had 
 been forgotten ; he alone should not have been 
 present. The light died away from his face, 
 and a grave misapprehension clouded his eyes. 
 
 " I shall go now and announce it to Aurore 
 myself, and Monsieur Felix. Oh, yes, there is 
 no need to conceal it a moment from the world ; 
 and you can explain it to Marie Modeste. I 
 shall send her to you immediately." 
 
 It was as if she were speaking to her pro- 
 fessor of mathematics. His letter might have 
 / made it all different ! He had offered the love 
 of his lifetime, he had asked for love. Was 
 she to give him duty, self-sacrifice? — And the 
 tete-a-tete was coming to an end! 
 
 She stood a moment to steady herself on her 
 high heels ; the room was as private as a grave, 
 as secret as her own heart at midnight; it was 
 mysterious and still. She looked all around at 
 the portraits on the wall, — portraits, not mir- 
 
Monsieur Motte. 171 
 
 rors, — and, as it were a dream, she forgot all that 
 she had been remembering for three months ; for- 
 got it all completely, deliciously. She turned to 
 the sofa, but the notary had risen too ; he had 
 been standing at her side pleading, reproachful. 
 
 " Mon ami." The lace sleeves fell back from 
 the arms she held to him, all her heart trembled 
 in her voice and looked through the tears in 
 her eyes. " Mon ami, it is not so ; do not 
 believe it: it is not duty, Armand." 
 
 There was no one to see them or hear them. 
 The birds outside were singing and the sun shin- 
 ing, the fresh new breezes rustling the trees, the 
 cane sweetening, the roses resting in the shade ; 
 the negroes were working in the field, the women 
 nursing and tending in the quarters ; Marie 
 Modeste was listening to curious prophecies 
 from Marcelite ; Mademoiselle Aurore was ex- 
 plaining to Monsieur Felix ; Stasie was grum- 
 bling; Gabi was submitting to his delayed 
 punishment from Edmond. \ The world had for- 
 gotten them ; it was rolling on without them, or 
 rather it had rolled back for them. She was sev- 
 enteen, dreaming in the allee, un&tr the olean- 
 ders, of love and a first lover. / He was twenty- 
 
172 Monsieur Matte. 
 
 five, rhyming sonnets in the moonlight, a 
 Vinconnue. And the rapture that came to them 
 then in a vision enfolded them now as they 
 exchanged their first embrace. 
 
 " Of course, Eugenie, you know your own 
 affairs best," said Mademoiselle Aurore. They 
 were again on the gallery, the sunset again on 
 the river. "As for me — " she shrugged her 
 shoulders, leaving the rest of the sentence (in 
 truth abortive in her own mind) to the imagi- 
 nation of Madame Lareveillere. A prolonged 
 pause threatened the extinction of the subject 
 of conversation. Mademoiselle Aurore resumed 
 in a cool tone of voice and polite reserve of man- 
 ner better calculated to extract embarrassing an- 
 swers than information from the friend who sat 
 helpless at her mercy. The tone and manner 
 were a personal accomplishment, apparently 
 not incompatible with her advanced degree of 
 religiosity. 
 
 " Has he money, — your Monsieur, your 
 fiance? " 
 
 One never gets past blushing, it seems, at 
 such terms, however perfectly the tongue can 
 simulate coldness. 
 
Monsieur Motte. 173 
 
 "He is not a beggar, nor a millionnaire : he 
 has a certain income from his profession." 
 
 " And you are independent, Lareveillere left 
 you so well provided for ! He is a notary public, 
 you said? " 
 
 " Yes, a notary public." 
 
 Their rocking-chairs rocked farther and far- 
 ther apart, making intercommunication an ef- 
 fort. But there was no one on the gallery or 
 about, and at a certain age mystery is presumed 
 absurd, at least by Mademoiselle Aurore, as 
 Madame Lareveillere acutely felt. 
 
 " And he lives on Royal Street? " 
 
 " Near St. Louis." 
 
 " Will you go there when — after the cere- 
 mony? " 
 
 " Yes, we wil l live in Royal Street." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! I am indiscreet." 
 
 " Not at all; it is no secret." 
 
 " I suppose your arrangements have been 
 made some time." 
 
 " I assure you only since to-day." 
 
 " And when — the wedding? I implore you, 
 do not answer unless you wish ! " 
 
 " In November." 
 
174 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 " November ! So soon ! But that is true, why- 
 waste time? " 
 
 " We only thought of that poor child Marie 
 Modeste. You see, her home will be with us, 
 naturally. There is so much to do, so many 
 affairs to regulate, Madame Joubert taking the 
 Institute — " Madame strove to make it ordi- 
 nary, commonplace, quite a business arrange- 
 ment; but whatever she said sounded apologetic 
 ^to humiliation, and her eyes felt the obscurity of 
 tears when they saw a thin smile on Mademoi- 
 selle Aurore's lips. 
 
 " It is hard for me to understand, — one like me, 
 who never has been married at all ; " the maiden 
 lady raised her hands, the fingers extended as if 
 from the touch of something unpleasant. " But 
 I should think the presence of a young girl, 
 enfin! — But you are never embarrassed, you! 
 Only during the first few days of the — what is 
 called (there is no other name for it, it is so 
 ridiculous !) the honeymoon, she might be a 
 little surprised, shocked even, not having seen 
 anything of the conjugal state. \ I must confess 
 for myself, there is a crudity — " 
 
 " No wonder, — no wonder," thought Madame, 
 
Monsieur Motte. 175 
 
 " she never got married. "J In truth, her thoughts 
 were very busy about her friend all the time, and 
 may be credited with a gallant assault against 
 an attachment which had so far proved impreg- 
 nable to time. 
 
 " It is not that, Aurore, but," forcing her- 
 self resolutely to speak, " if you would let me 
 leave her with you for a few days. If you would 
 take care of her until we are arranged in the city. 
 Monsieur Goupilleau advises it, and I — I know 
 nothing better to propose. It is a favor I ask for 
 her, for myself. I shall never forget it; indeed, 
 it will lay me under the greatest obligations. 
 Poor young girl ! You understand it will be 
 painful for her to go back to the school again." 
 
 " Eugenie ! How can you doubt it? How can 
 you ask? " W hen it came to ^question of hospi- 
 tality^orjriendship, Mademoiselle Aurore yielded 
 to no one. " I was going to propose it myself! 
 Did you think I would ever allow, ever consent 
 to any other arrangement? The idea! It is the 
 only thing natural, the only thing proper ! I 
 shall keep her here, and take her myself to the 
 city when you are ready for her. As if I could 
 not love a young girl as well as you or Marcelite ! 
 
 ZL 
 
176 Monsieur Motte. 
 
 Poor child, jthat is jme_o£jcmr_war-xlaims ! As 
 foHVLarcelite, I can't tell you what I think of her 
 conduct. It is heroic ; it is sublime ! Oh, she 
 will ne^^rjmnt^Jnejid_as_lorig^ as I Jive, or Fe- 
 lix either ! And Ninie," calling her by her old, 
 school, pet name, abruptly changing the subject, 
 leaving her chair, too, to get nearer her friend, 
 " there is something you must not deny me, — 
 indeed I have a right to insist upon it; I am sure 
 you will not wound me by a refusal. I thought 
 of it instantly; I have planned it all out; I have 
 even announced it to Felix and Stasie." The 
 thin little woman had gone back, back, in her 
 life, far away from the present; where was she 
 going to stop, in the sweet loveliness of her ca- 
 ressing manner and words? She was so delicate, 
 so genuine ! 
 
 " Cherie, you must remain here too, you must 
 be married from Bel Angely, — from the home of 
 your oldest, best friends, with your old sister Au- 
 rore to wait on you, to love you to the last — " 
 
 " Aurore ! my angel ! my treasure ! Titite," — 
 that was her little name. " It was my secret 
 wish, my supreme desire ! Ah, what a heart ! 
 What a friend ! " 
 
Monsieur Motte. 177 
 
 It was worth so much difference, so many dif- 
 ferences, — the reconciliation ; t he crossing ove r 
 from such a separation in their natures tp_meet 
 again as they had started in life, heart open to 
 heart, tongue garrulous to tongue, all revealed, 
 understood, nothing concealed, — absolutely 
 nothing. For there was a generous rivalry in 
 loyal self-surrender and confession until Stasie 
 again blew the horn for supper; and the feeble 
 echoes returning quickly to the gallery, like 
 aged birds after a short flight, put an end to 
 the interview. 
 
THE DRAMA OF AN EVENING. 
 
THE DRAMA OF AN EVENING. 
 
 T was ca rnival tim e of the year in New 
 Orleans. The annual machinery of 
 gayety had been set in motion : heavy, 
 cumbersome, antiquated machinery, with eti- 
 quette, ceremony, precautions, and safeguards 
 innumerable for the inflammable hearts trans- 
 planted from a tropical court to a tropical clime. 
 It was the meeting-time of the year for the young 
 people, the season for opportunity, the mating- 
 time to come later in the spring, when the flowers 
 twisted themselves naturally into bridal-wreaths, 
 or in the early summer, when the mocking-birds 
 sang all through the moonlight nights. In the 
 wise little self-sufficient Creole world there was no 
 opportunity like that offered by a soiree. From 
 time immemorial a soiree h ad b een th e official 
 gate of entrances nto the great world of society, 
 
1 82 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 and this year Madame Fkunssant^was to open 
 the season, — Madame Edmond Fleurissant; for 
 the last name had been so stretched that it em- 
 braced not individuals, but classes. The soiree 
 
 was given to ^hlEF"~grand-daughter, Stephanie 
 
 Morel, who was to make_her debut into the 
 
 great world out of the little world of school. 
 
 Stephanie had not graduated ; indeed, she was 
 
 f — 
 only in the second class ; but Nature would not 
 
 wait for the diploma of St. Denis. Nature is 
 that way in New Orleans, — so impatient. A 
 young girl must be very industrious there to 
 get an education before her debitt. 
 
 From the time the invitations were sent out 
 there had been nothing else talked about by the 
 debutantes. The giddy little heads, still full of 
 Mass, and still wet with the touch of holy water, 
 would loiter, on their way from the cathedral, 
 by the seductive shops, or come together out- 
 side the artificial-flower windows (rivalling the 
 show within) to consult on the proper parure 
 for the occasion. Field flowers, lilies of the 
 valley, daisies, myosotis, and rosebuds, " rose 
 tendre," the sweetest of all flowers for a debu- 
 tante, — they bloomed, a miraculous spring, in 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 183 
 
 the confined laborariums, and but for the glass 
 would have poured out over the damp stone 
 banquette. The day of the intellect was felt 
 to be over; it was the body which had to be 
 furnished now._ It was not only a question of 
 artificial flowers, tulles and tarlatans, gloves, 
 and slippers, but of pointed or round bodices, 
 clinging or spread skirts. With Paris so far 
 away, and American fashions so encroaching 
 and so prosaic, what problem had their arith- 
 metic ever furnished to compare with it? 
 
 The interest, which had been diffused to the 
 extreme limits of the square of the city, as the 
 original French settlement is called, began in 
 reflex to return as the 27th of December 
 approached, until with the day itself it hov- 
 ered over a once fashionable neighborhood, 
 now a quartier perdu given over to coffee-houses, 
 oyster-stands, mattress-makers, and chambres 
 garnies suspects, and finally concentrated on 
 the old gray stucco building, — a by no means 
 insignificant theatre of social festivities in that 
 celebrated time long past, to which even a refer- 
 ence now is monotonous. As night fell, the 
 venerable mansion arose through the darkness, 
 
1 84 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 glittering with light, shedding a stately radiance 
 over the humble roofs opposite, and shaming 
 the social degradation of its whilom intimates 
 and neighbors on each side. Both portals were 
 opened for the reception of guests, — the great 
 wide porte-cocJierc in front, and the back gate 
 on the street in the rear. This gate had been 
 thoughtfully propped open, that the hinges 
 might not be injured or the mistress disturbed 
 by the continual opening and shutting of another 
 procession of guests, — the expected if uninvited, 
 a not inconsiderable gathering from an old osten- 
 
 tatioiis-snpfir fluous retin ue. Having come within 
 the radius of the news that Madame Edmond was 
 going to give a soiree, they, naturally considering 
 their former intimate relations with the family, 
 came to the soiree itself. (Those who had antg r 
 ejTijmdpj^tion costumes of flowered mousseline- 
 de-laine gowns, black-silk aprons, and real 
 bandanna head-kerchiefs, put them on for vol- 
 unteer service in the dressing-roomj Those 
 who had shawls put them on to hide toilet 
 deficiencies, and also a prudently provided 
 basket. Those victims of constitutional im- 
 providence who had neither baskets nor shawls 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 185 
 
 came in untempered shiftlessness to gloat their 
 eyes and glut their bodies on whatever chance 
 might throw in their way. All entered alike 
 boldly and assuredly, in the consciousness of 
 their unabrogated funeral and festal privileges, 
 inspected, with their heaven-given leisurely 
 manner the provisions for refreshment, com- 
 mented on the adornments, reconnoitred the 
 rooms, and finally selected advantageous posi- 
 tions for observation behind the shutters of 
 the ladies' dressing-rooms, or posted themselves 
 in obscure corners of the hall. What sights to 
 t ake ho me to their crowded shanties ! And the 
 sounds ! Where could so many voices, so 
 many emotions, be assembled as in a ladies' 
 dressing-room before a soiree , — a debut soiree? 
 " Have I too much powder? " 
 " Is my hair right so? " 
 
 " Does my dress show my feet too much? " 
 " Perhaps my comb would be better this 
 way? " 
 
 " Shall I put a moitchc just here? " 
 It is so important to look well on a debut 
 night. Everything depends upon that. Why, 
 a wrinkle in a bodice, a flaw in a glove, a curl 
 
1 86 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 this way or that, is enough to settle a destiny. 
 No wonder they were nervous and excited. 
 Self-confidence vanished as it had never done 
 before, even in an "Histoire de France" contest at 
 school. And in matters of toilet there is no 
 such thing as luck. There seemed to be an 
 idea that Fate could be propitiated by self- 
 abnegation. The looking-glass extorted the 
 most humble confessions. 
 
 " I am a fright ! " 
 
 " As for me, I am perfectly hideous ! " 
 
 " I told mamaii how it would be ! " 
 
 " Now, it's no use ! " 
 
 " It is that Madame Treize ! ah, what a 
 demon ! " 
 
 "I can hardly stand in my slippers, they are 
 so tight." 
 
 " And mine are so loose, — perfect ships." 
 
 " Ah, that Renaudiere ! the rascal ! " came 
 in chorus from all, for they all knew the shoe- 
 maker well. 
 
 " Just see what wretched gloves ! " 
 
 " Look at my bodice ! My dear, it was laced 
 three times over, — the last time more crooked 
 than the first." 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 1 8/ 
 
 In fact, there was not an article of dress, glove, 
 shoe, or parure that answered expectations; not 
 a modiste or fabricant of any kind that had not 
 betrayed trust. And so restricted as they were 
 to expression, — hardly daring to breathe under 
 their laces or lift an eyebrow under their hairpins ! 
 Each one yielded unreservedly to her own panic, 
 but strove to infuse courage into the others. 
 
 " CJiere, you look lovely!" imprinting pru- 
 dent little kisses in undamageable spots. 
 
 " You are so good, you only say that to con- 
 sole me." 
 
 "But I assure you, Doucette ! " 
 
 " Ah, if I only looked as well as you ! " 
 
 " What an exquisite toilet ! " 
 
 " No, dierie ! You can't conceal it, it is 
 unbecoming ! " 
 
 "But, on my word of honor ! " 
 
 " My dear, it is not to flatter, but you look 
 like an angel ! " 
 
 " No, it is all over with me, I told maman ! 
 I did not wish to come." 
 
 " My hair is getting limp already." 
 
 The weather was really turning warm and 
 moist, as if purposely to relax their curls. 
 
1 88 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 The music commenced downstairs. 
 
 "Ah, that's Benoit! " 
 
 And they fell into still greater trepidation over 
 this exhibition of expenditure on their behalf. 
 
 " There 's going to be a crowd ! " 
 
 "A/i, mon Dieu ! " came from a despairing 
 heart. 
 
 " Marcelite, my good Marcelite, put a pin 
 here ! " 
 
 " Marcelite, for the love of heaven tie this 
 bow ! " 
 
 " Marcelite, this string is broken ! " 
 
 " See that big, fat quadroon ! That is Marcelite 
 Gaulois, the coiffeuse. She is the hairdresser 
 for all the haut ton," whispered one of the know- 
 ing ones in the crowd outside the window. 
 
 " That must be her mamzelle, hein, — the tall 
 one with the black hair? " 
 
 " Marcelite, I am so afraid," whispered Marie 
 Modeste all the time. 
 
 " Zozo, you are the prettiest of all," or, " Zozo, 
 your dress is the prettiest of all," was the inva- 
 riable refrain. 
 
 " Must we go down now? " 
 
 " Bonne chance, chere!" 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 189 
 
 " Pray for me, hehi, Marcelite? " 
 " And don't forget me, Marcelite ! " 
 "Here, this is for good luck!" And with 
 signs of the cross and exhortation 1 they went 
 downstairs into — not the parlors, that was not 
 what frightened them, but the future, the illimi- 
 table future, that for which all their previous life 
 had been a preface. One step more, it would be 
 the present, and th eir ch ildhood would be over. 
 
 From the time her carriage left her door, 
 M adame Montyon had talked incessantly to her 
 son, a handsome y oung man with a listless face, 
 who was carefully seated in an opposite corner, 
 out of the way of the (never-an-instant-to-be- 
 forgotten new velvet gown. What she intended 
 to do, what she intended to say, what her lis- 
 teners intended to do and say, — nay, what they 
 intended to think ! Always speaking and think- 
 ing consonant to her disposition, she evidently \ 
 intended to carry her business to the ball, and 
 had laid out her plans in consequence of some/ 
 recent interview with her agent. 
 
 " I told Goupilleau, ' Goupilleau, nonsense ! 
 You don't know whom you are talking to ! Can't 
 get money out of this people ! bah ! Giving 
 
190 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 balls, going to balls, and not pay house-rent, 
 not pay office-rent, not even pay interest on 
 their debts ! debts reduced to ten cents on the 
 dollar ! But what are you singing to me, mon 
 ami?' 'But Madame must not judge by the 
 present.' 'And why not? Why not judge by 
 the present?' 'The crises, the revolution, the 
 reconstruction — ' ' La, la, la, you are too sym- 
 pathetic. Goupille au, my friend, let me tell 
 you, you are no_ longe r a notary, you are no 
 longer an agent. You are a philanthropist, — 
 a poetic philanthropist. Go coo with the doves, 
 but don't talk business like that ! ' And Gou- 
 pilleau knew I was right. I can read thought ! 
 One is n't a Duperre for nothing." 
 
 This was a well-known allusion to the fact 
 that( her father, General Duperre, a child of the 
 Revolution in default of more illustrious ances- 
 try, had distinguished himself once in a certain 
 provincial trouble in France by his boundless 
 sagacity and impregnable firmness.^J 
 
 The young man made a movement, but only 
 with his foot. 
 
 " Take care ! My dress ! You will crush it ! 
 Black-velvet dresses cost money, and money is 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 191 
 
 not picked up under tire foot of every galloping 
 horse! " — whatever she meant by this favorite 
 expression. " No, my son." \ She pronounced 
 these words with ajsligh t ins i sten ce on the " my," 
 an assumption of motherhood that betrayed 
 the pretender.^ " One must give a hand to one's 
 own affairs. The eye of the master is very good, 
 particularly when one employs lawyers. 
 
 " ' Goupilleau,' I said, ' what of those stores on 
 Chartres Street? ' 
 
 " ' Taxes, Madame.' 
 
 " ' And the houses on Dumaine Street? ' 
 
 " ' Repairs, Madame.' 
 
 "'The Ste. Helena plantation?' 
 
 " ' The freeze last year, Madame.' 
 
 "'The old Duboi s — the old rascal! — plan- 
 tation? ' 
 
 " ' Overflow, Madame.' 
 
 " ' The brick-kiln over the river? ' 
 
 " ' Destroyed by fire, Madame.' 
 
 " ' Goupilleau, you wrote me that that mis- 
 erable wretch, that abominable hypocrite, old 
 Greaud, is broken-hearted, wants to commit sui- 
 cide, bankrupt, and I don't know what all; and . 
 yet his daughter gets married, and orders her 
 
1 92 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 trousseau from Paris (oh*! don't take the trouble 
 to deny it ; I know it, I got it from my own 
 dressmaker) ; and has such a wedding as the world 
 has never seen ! ' ' Ah, Madame ! ' shrugging 
 his shoulders," — shrugging hers too ; she had 
 been imitating his voice and manner all along 
 in the dark, — "'it came from his wife, the 
 mother of the young lady.' ' But, just heavens ! 
 Goupilleau.' I said, ' do you mean to tell me 
 that what little God and the Government leave 
 to me of my debts is to be hidden under the 
 Hvomen's petticoats? ' Well ! I shall see for my- 
 self this evening. ! I am very glad the Grandmere 
 Fleurissant gives this ball. Ah ! I shall let them 
 know ! '.J 
 
 " I hope," said the young man, in a voice 
 that expressed a very faint hope indeed, " you 
 will be discreet; the Creoles — ■" 
 
 "Bah! the Creoles," contemptuously ; " don't 
 you think I know the Creoles? They are Cre- 
 oles, remember, not Parisians." 
 
 It was hardly possible for him to forget a 
 fact of which he had been reminded at almost 
 every stroke of the clock since their departure . 
 from France. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 193 
 
 " You forget that I, too, am a Creole." 
 " Charles," — the voice came back suddenly, 
 cold with offended dignity, — " you forget your- 
 self; you must not speak so, I do not like it; 
 in fact, you know it displeases me extremely ; " 
 and silence lasted now until the carriage stopped 
 before the house, where, really, a policeman 
 was very much needed, to keep not only the 
 forward bodies of the banquette children, but 
 also their impudent tongues, in order. 
 
 She had been going on to tell him much 
 more, — about the " Succession d'Arvil," which, 
 after all, had beenjtiiejiriportant reason of her 
 coming to America; how 7 the half-million she 
 hoped from it was still buried in a mass of old 
 paper, a regular rag-picker collection. " That 
 Goupilleau — oh, Goupilleau ! he is not the man 
 he was ; marriage has quenched him. He was 
 still looking, looking, looking," — screwing up 
 her eyes and handling bits of paper in her 
 gloved hands, — " examining, comparing, as if 
 in fact he held a contract from heaven to sup- 
 ply him with all the time he needed, i ,J^ot one 
 half of the papers gone through, and fully a 
 month since he died, — old Arvil ! It ought to 
 13 
 
194 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 be at least a half-million ! " She had suffered 
 that amount of shame from him during his life- 
 time, it was worth half a million to appear 
 as his niece now. 
 
 " But Goupilleau is so slow ! I shall give 
 him a talk to-morrow ! I shall say ' so and so,' 
 and he will say ' so and so.' " 
 
 Her irascibility once excited, eloquence flowed 
 without bounds ; her verbal castigation of the 
 notary was satisfactory and complete, and the 
 succession of her uncle hastened to a conclu- 
 sion, — her own conclusion, a half-million. It 
 would be a neat addition to Charles's heritage. 
 " Charles ! " her robust, strong nature melted 
 over the name, j Late in life her fortune had 
 bought her the temporary possession of a hus- 
 band but the permanent ownership of a child, — 
 a beautiful little child, who had unlocked the 
 passion of maternity in her. She was of the 
 kind who are born to be mothers, not wives; 
 who can do better without a husband than with- 
 out children. As her old Uncle Arvil had 
 hoarded money, so she hoarded this affection. 
 As he had descended to base usages to obtain 
 his desire, so had she descended to unworthy 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 195 
 
 measures for the monopoly of this one heart—' 
 The little boy had responded well to her efforts, 
 had given her much, had forgotten much. But 
 he had not given her all, and he had not for- 
 gotten the one whom to eradicate from his 
 memory she would have bartered all her pos- 
 sessions, much as she loved them, — his own 
 mother. 
 
 "/ am your maman, Charles." 
 
 " You are my m aman, but not my own 
 maman." The childish verbal distinction be- 
 came the menace of her life, the sentiment of 
 his. And the_cLead.- -mother, as dead mothers 
 do, became a religion, while the living one 
 remained a devotion. 
 
 She walked like a Duperre through the vol- 
 leys of commentaries on the sidewalk. " Ma- 
 man," said the young man in a low voice, as 
 they mounted the steps, " be discreet, I im- 
 plore you." 
 
 " Bah ! " was the answer ; and then he began 
 to regret that he had not sought an excuse to 
 stay away. He was as sensitive as she was ob- 
 tuse, and there seemed to be no escape from 
 impending ridicule. He placed himself out of 
 
1 96 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 {■"•= 
 the way of the dancers, against the wall ; ^ con- 
 demned by his forebodings to be an observer 
 of, rather than_a participant in, the pleasures 
 of the evening. 
 
 The antique gilt chandeliers festooned with 
 crystal drops lighted up the faded, as they 
 had once lighted up the fresh, glories of the spa- 
 cious rooms. Gilt candelabra with fresh pink- 
 paper bobedies branched out everywhere to 
 assist in the illumination, — from the door, the 
 windows, the arches, and under the colossal mir- 
 rors, which were sized to reflect giants. Old 
 
 magnificences^Juxuries, and extravagances hov- 
 ered about the furniture, or seemed to creep 
 in, like the old slaves at the back gate, to lend 
 themselves for_llie occasion ; even in a dilapi- 
 dated, enfranchised condition, good, if for noth- 
 ing else, to propitiate present criticism with 
 suggestive extenuations from the past. As the 
 parlors with their furniture, so were many of the 
 chaperons with their toilets. There were no re- 
 proaches of antiquity to be passed between them. 
 But the good material had remained intact with 
 both, and the fine manners which antedated both 
 furniture and clothes, and to an observer obliter- 
 
The Drama of an Evening 197 
 
 ated them, establishing a_charming..and refresh- c" 
 ingjsupremacy of principals over accessories. 
 
 " Ninety years old ! " 
 
 "Ninety!" exclaimed Tante Pauline. "Ninety- 
 two, if you believe me ; I know well ! " 
 
 Every one naturally said the same thing, com- 
 ing away from the venerable hostess. Tante 
 Pauline, who was aunt only by courtesy to every 
 one in the room, had constituted herself a kind 
 of breakwater to turn the tide of compliment into 
 truth. She was in an admirable position, near 
 the door. 
 
 " How can she be so malicious ! " thought 
 the young married woman standing by her side, 
 adjusting her eye-glasses for another look about 
 the room. 
 
 It was well she did, for she was so near- 
 sighted she would never have seen the candle- 
 grease dripping down over a bobecJie upon a 
 young man's coat. 
 
 She made a motion to speak, then hesitated, 
 then, with some mental admonition to courage, — 
 
 " Monsieur, you are standing under the drip \ 
 of a candle." 
 
 "Mafoin/" she thought, "he is distingue, 
 
19S The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 good-looking, and young. Why does n't he 
 
 dance? If I knew his name I could introduce 
 
 him. In fact, if I knew him I could talk to him 
 
 myself." 
 
 " Ah ! I can tell you, my maman went to 
 1 
 school with her youngest daughter, and then she 
 
 was a woman ; a woman of a very certain age in 
 
 society." 
 
 The tall, angular, Tante Pauline talked all the 
 time, shrugging her shoulders under her thin 
 g/ace-silk waist, tapping her sandal-wood fan, 
 and gesticulating with her bony hands, in their 
 loose black silk mittens. 
 
 " Ninety ! Who would think it? " 
 
 " It is a miracle ! " 
 
 " And so charming, so spiritucllc! " 
 
 " AJ^eaudful ball,! Really like old times." 
 
 " Eh, Qdile ! " Tante Pauline spread her 
 fan (rusting spangles on a ground of faded red 
 silk) to shield what she was going to say to her 
 companion. 
 
 " She ought to know how to give balls ! She 
 \ has given enough of them. That is the way she 
 "married off six daughters." 
 
 " Tante Pauline ! " 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 199 
 
 " Of course, and evaded paying the dot with 
 every single one of them," emphasizing each syl- 
 lable. "What do you think of that, hem? Oh, N 
 she has a head for business. She has plenty of 
 money to give balls." 
 
 "Who can he be, Tante Pauline?" asked 
 Odile, looking towards the young man whose 
 coat she had rescued. 
 
 " Eh ! " The sharp eyes screwed under their 
 brows. "But what specimen is that? I can't 
 place him. Ma chkre, how foolish, but don't 
 you see whom he is looking at? But look over 
 there ! there ! " and she pointed with a long 
 knotted finger. " Black velvet, diamonds, mar- 
 about feathers. Ah, what a masquerade ! a 
 whole Mardi-gras. But, Odile, how stupid of' 
 you ! Madame Montyon, enfin; that is her son, 
 — her step-son, I should say." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Odile, with a vivid show of inter- 
 est; "just from France ! " 
 
 " Of course, my dear. Have you not heard? 
 But where have you been all this week? C_Qms. 
 over on business, to buy out or sell out, Heaven 
 knows what ! — all of us poor Creoles who owe her 
 a picayune. And then there is the -Arvil sue- 
 
> 
 
 200 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 cession, too. Who knows what a hole that will 
 niake- injmr poor city? Poor old New Orleans! 
 But just look at her, my dear; did you ever see 
 such_airs ? Ah, well ! I don't wonderTTaflor 
 Montyon^died. I remember him well, as if he 
 were of yesterday. I must confess it served him 
 right; he married her for money," she laughed 
 maliciously, "but he only got her: the money 
 was kept well out of his embraces ; and very 
 wisely, for Laflor was a fool about money. Poor 
 Melanie ! She would turn in her grave to know 
 who had had the raising of her baby. And 
 what does he look like, after all? " with a dis- 
 paraging glance at the young man. " A Paris- 
 ianized xreole ! An Americanized creole is bad 
 enough, but a Parisianized — good-day ! Why 
 does he not dance? Why can he not play the 
 polite to the young girls? Does he think per- 
 haps that he is too good for us, — that we are sav- 
 ages, barbarians ! That old paper-shaving Arvil ! 
 buying, buying, buying, — always secretly ; and 
 ^hiding, hiding it all away in his rat-hole, a perfect 
 miserable caboose, under the mattress. No won- 
 der he lived so long. Death hated to go there for 
 •him ! And the clothes he wore ! We will not even 
 
Tl)e Drama of an Evening. 201 
 
 allude to them. Well, he did die and was buried, 
 and then, grand coup de theatre, Madame turns 
 out to b_e- his niece and heiress. The rich, the 
 elegant, the aristocratic Madame Montyon, with 
 her chateau in France, the niece of old ' rag- 
 picker ' Arvil, as we used to call him. And he, 
 our disdainful young man, will get it ail. Ha ! <^ 
 ha ! ha ! Ah, t he poor Creoles ! She wiped 
 the tears of merriment from her eyes with a 
 thin saffron-colored handkerchief, a sharer of 
 the sandal-wood perfume of the fan. But 
 surely, Odile, you have heard all this? " 
 
 " I don't say no, Tante Pauline." Odile spoke 
 with indifference ; she was in truth a little dis- 
 consolate. Her husband had brought her into 
 the room and planted her there at the begin- 
 ning of the soiree ; she had not seen him since. 
 As for beaux, they had bidden her farewell the 
 night of her marriage, as the beaux of discreet 
 brides always do.^ But her discretion did not 
 preserve her from ennui now. 
 
 " Excuse me, Madame, but it is broken ! " 
 and she warned for the fourth or fifth time some 
 fatigued dowager off an incapacitated chair, 
 which stood in a conspicuous place by warrant 
 
202 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 of its great age and beauty, — an ornamental 
 guet-apeus. 
 
 " Ninety — Bonte divine! " 
 
 " Odile," Tante Pauline interrupted her assev- 
 eration, "just look at Goupilleau and his wife, — 
 the newly-married ones ! Goupilleau ! Heav- 
 ens, what a name ! Poor old Lareveillere]_Jie 
 was an_ aristocrat, at least. They say — ah, I 
 don't know," and her shoulders began to rise 
 again with serpentine motions from her far- 
 distant waist, — " they sayjhe-has adopted that 
 young girl. Well, it is n't my affair ; but what 
 can you expect, since the war?" 
 
 " Well, well, my dear, are you amusing your- 
 self? " Odile's husband came through the door 
 at her back. He always carefully spoke Eng- 
 lish in jDublic, being what Tante Pauline called 
 u an Americanized Creole ; " his wife, as care- 
 fully, spoke French. 
 
 " As you see," shrugging her frail shoulders 
 out of her low-necked waist. 
 
 " Ah, one soon gets past all this ! " He spoke 
 like an old, old married man ; this was another 
 of his affectations. She turned her head and 
 gave a quick side-glance at him with her Ian- 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 203 
 
 guid oval eyes. It was not so very long ago 
 since she, too, was dancing out on the floor 
 there, a young girl, he a young man, — dancing, 
 with the honeymoon in their distant horizon, 
 gayly and thoughtlessly as any. They had 
 reached and passed it. What is one moon to 
 a year of matrimony? She wore her wedding- 
 gown this evening, fresh still, with only the 
 seams taken up. He was stouter, bluffer, wore 
 his coat carelessly, left a button out of his vest. 
 "Who is the young_coxcomb ? " So he desig- 
 nated the young man who was still in fixed con- 
 templation of the decolletee black-velvet dress 
 and marabout feathers. 
 
 " Young Charles Montyon. I find him quite 
 comme il faut, on the contrary." 
 
 " He has a confounded supercilious air." 
 " T admire it; I would like to know him." 
 " Benoit is playing well this evening." Her 
 husband nodded toward the piano, behind which 
 the dark bold head of^the colored pianist could 
 be seen in passionate movement. 
 
 " Ah, he ought to play well," chimed in Tante 
 Pauline, " he asks enough ; but really, his prices 
 are enormous. And I am not the only one who 
 
204 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 is wondering how the Fleurissants can afford it; 
 when you think of poor Caro Fleurissant mak- 
 ing her living embroidering for a few miserable 
 picayunes. But then they say Benoit gives half 
 to his old mistress. In fact, she would starve 
 without it. Well, some women are fortunate to 
 have people work for them ! Eh, Henri? " 
 
 But Henri Maziel had left; indeed, he had 
 not waited beyond the last word of his own 
 remark. 
 
 " I do not think we can compliment Henri 
 Maziel on his manners," whispered Tante Paul- 
 ine, under the perfumed shelter of her fan, to 
 her left-hand neighbor. " Poor Odile ! but she 
 would marry him ; she was warned enough ! I 
 heard she threatened to kill herself or go in a 
 convent. The threats of a girl of seventeen — 
 bah ! And that is what is called having a 
 husband ! " 
 
 The young girls danced as only young girls 
 can dance, to Benoit's music, — with no past be- 
 \hind them to weigh down their light feet, and 
 no future before them but of their own manu- 
 facture ; danced round and round in the circle 
 bounded by the rows of darkly-clad chaperons, 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 205 
 
 as if they did not see them, their anxious, cal- 
 culating faces, their sombre-hued bodies, or 
 their sombre-hued lives ; danced in the frank, 
 joyous exuberance of youth on its first entrance 
 into the " great world." Their tulle and tarla- 
 tane skirts spread wider and wider in the breeze 
 from their own motions, until they stood out like 
 full-blown roses, showing the little high-heeled 
 slippers underneath playing as lightly on the 
 floor as Benoit's fingers on the piano. Bunches 
 and crowns of artificial flowers were pinned on 
 their quick-moving, restless heads. Their fresh, 
 young, bending, curving bodies swelled under 
 the tightly-laced satin bodices. Eighteen, seven- 
 teen, sixteen, — they were not out a moment too 
 soon. Over their books, over their dolls even,, 
 their majority had come to them, — their fragile 
 dowe r of beauty, the ancestral heritage of the 
 women, held in mortmain from generation to gen- 
 eration. Type came out strongly under the ex- 
 citement. In their languid, dormant Creole lives 
 it had— held, feature and character tenaciously; 
 to southern, to northern France, to Spain, to 
 Italy, with faint tinges from Semitic or Anglo- 
 Saxon^ influences. The newly-bloomed faces 
 
206 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 were varied, unconventional, changing, with 
 nothing regular, nothing perfect, nothing mo- 
 notonous in them, presenting constant surpris- 
 ing, piquant variations on the usual coloring and 
 features, with exotic exaggerations and freaks in 
 both, which permitted little audacities of toilet, 
 risks in coiffure, originality in bows ; they walked, 
 spoke, were graceful, fascinating, and charm- 
 ing, grandes dames, by inspiration or tradition, 
 as the grammatical but ill-spelling court of 
 LouIs^XiyZiilked^ 
 
 Their timidity had left them, self-confidence 
 had returned. Naively proud of their new trous- 
 seaux, of looks and clothes, they dispensed their 
 favors with prodigal generosity, unconscious of 
 their own wastefulness ; experimenting with looks 
 and smiles and winsome address ; using their 
 dangerous woman-eyes with childish hardihood ; 
 charging their transparent little phrases with ex- 
 pressions of which life had not yet taught them 
 \he significance. 
 
 They were, without doubt, now delighted with 
 themselves. They could not keep from looking 
 up at the mirrors, as they passed in promenade, 
 twirling with Cuban agility their scintillating 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 207 
 
 plumed fans. And the old mirrors, at times, 
 could hardly contain between their gilded frames 
 the upturned, flower-crowned, questioning faces. 
 They did not indorse each other now, or ask 
 indorsement; they had already journeyed too far 
 in their feminine tactics. 
 
 The breath-laden air, mounting warmer and 
 warmer, seemed to brighten the Cupids and 
 the flowers painted on the ceiling. The white 
 lint from the drugget floated around like pollen 
 in autumn in search of flower-hearts to fructify. 
 One could not look across the room without 
 traversing the dazzling electricity shooting from 
 eye to eye. 
 
 " Ah, they are very happy, Madame Ed- 
 mond ! " said her old beau, with a sigh. 
 
 " Or they think they are, which is sufficient," 
 answered the old lady. 
 
 " Oh, no, they do not think. The more 
 one thinks the less one laughs. Hear them 
 laugh ! " 
 
 Out in the hall was the punch-bowl, and out 
 in the hall were the fathers and uncles, and all 
 the old, old gentlemen who are neither fathers 
 nor uncles, but who come to balls simply be- 
 
208 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 r, 
 
 cause they cannot stay away. \ They compli- 
 mented one another's families/ talked Alphonse 
 Karr and Lamartine, repeated sharp truths from 
 Thiers or blunt ones from Guizot between their 
 sips of punch, and in the neutral garb of their 
 dress-coats discussed moderately, republicans, 
 royalists, and imperialists, the politics of France. 
 They made periodical excursions into the par- 
 lors, where tl\eir old hearts (grown torpid in the 
 monotonous decorum of married life), warming 
 at the sight of so much beauty and the taste of 
 punch, grew lusty, and were eager to fall in love 
 again — with one another's grand-daughters. 
 
 " How gentille she is, — that little Stephanie 
 Morel ! " 
 
 " A perfect bonbon ! " 
 
 " It 's a family trait. ' La gentille Fleurissanf,' 
 asjtejJsecLto say, eh, Auguste?" 
 
 " Ate! It hurts me still! " and the old vic- 
 tim laid his wrinkled hand over the sepulchre 
 of his defunct heart. 
 
 " Ah, coquette ! coquette ! " A warning fin- 
 ger was shaken at a passing belle. 
 
 " You do not tell me that is the daughter 
 of—" 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 209 
 
 " Th& daughter ! Come ! You are posing for 
 youth ; \jhe ^rtf/^-daughter, it is, of your old 
 flame." 
 
 " They grow with a rapidity, — a rapidity, these 
 young girls ! " 
 
 " Ah, they do not wish to wait until their 
 grand-mamans have wrinkles ! 
 
 "Bah! women are such coquettes, they do 
 not wrinkle any more." 
 
 " That is true. Mon Dicu ! just look at them ! " 
 
 " They have not changed in the least, — only 
 the_fashion of their dresses." 
 
 "As for that, the fashions are no longer what 
 they used to be. The grace, the charm of the 
 old ball ^dresses ! " 
 
 " And the coiffures /" 
 
 " The coiffures of the present ! look at them, — 
 monstrous exaggerations ! " 
 
 ' r When it comes to coiffures, what will not a 
 pretty woman put on her head ! " 
 
 " Or an ugly one ! " 
 
 " Ugly! no, mon cher, there are none." 
 
 " D o yo u remember Madame de Pontalba, 
 when — " "~-"~-- — ■ — 
 
 " Apropos of coiffures, that anecdote Alphonse 
 14 
 
210 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 Karr relates, ha ! ha ! ha ! " The anecdotes 
 crossed. 
 
 " It was Monsieur de Pontalba." 
 
 " No, it was Madame de Pontalba." 
 
 "The hairdresser of Madame Recamier, ha! 
 ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Briant was there at the time, — Auguste 
 Briant, — and he told me — " 
 
 " The hairdresser looked around and saw, 
 imagine — ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Madame de Pontalba said, ' Monsieur! ' " 
 
 " A white object on a chair— " 
 
 " She was never the same again." 
 
 " And that was the coiffure she wore, ha ! 
 ha ! ha! ha ! " 
 
 " Goupilleau ! Goupilleau ! " Madame Mon- 
 tyon walked up like a brigadier and ordered the 
 notary out like a soldier from the ranks. One 
 could easily imagine a brigadier uniform under 
 the new black-velvet gown, — sword, epaulettes, 
 spurs, and all; and the marabout feathers in 
 her hair waved over a face that would have 
 suited a kepi. 
 
 "Goupilleau, I cannot believe it! That Ma- 
 dame Flotte maintains — " 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 2 1 r 
 
 " To-morrow morning, my dear lady, in my 
 office, I shall be entirely at your service." 
 
 "No, no! Now! Come to her; tell her 
 yourself! " 
 
 " In my office, to-morrow — " 
 
 " No ! now ! " And they walked away to 
 gether, she victorious, as usual. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! " 
 
 " Hear that old 'Jean qui rit* still laughing 
 over his Madame Recamier story." 
 
 " No ! no ! Ho ! ho ! " The old gentleman's 
 extended mouth cut a semicircle in his soft, 
 round, beardless face. " Ho ! ho ! ho ! ho ! 
 That Providence ! What a. farceur, my friends ! 
 For a jeu (T esprit there is no one like him. 
 To the sans-culotte father he sends a pantalooned 
 daughter, — ha! ha! ha! " 
 
 When the arrivals entirely ceased, the lookers- 
 on upstairs, the back-door guests, had to ad- 
 vance their positions to be at all repaid for 
 the trouble of peeping. Like shadows they 
 crept out on tiptoe from their hiding-places to 
 hang over the banisters and look down on the 
 exalted, God-favored world below, their eager 
 eyes catching the light and shining strangely 
 
2 1 2 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 out of the darkness of their faces. The hair- 
 dressers and maids, in virtue of their superior 
 appearance, had the privilege of the steps all 
 \the way down to the floor beneath. They 
 sat, their bright bandanna heads looking like 
 huge^posies, exchanging their bold, frank, and 
 characteristically shrewd comments on their 
 whilom masters and mistresses. What did they 
 not know of the world in which destiny had 
 placed them in the best of all possible positions 
 for observation? What had been two low, dim, 
 or secret for them as slaves to crawl into? 
 From their memory or experience, as they sat 
 there, what private archives of their city might 
 not have been gathered, — the snarls and tan- 
 gles, the crossings and counter-crossings of in- 
 trigue, the romances dipped in guilt, the guilt 
 gilded with romance, the tragedies from the 
 aspiring passions of some, the degrading pas- 
 sions of others, and all the impurities from 
 common self-indulgence, with indestructible 
 consequences to stalk like ghosts through the 
 pleasant present ! Their school had well taught 
 them the strength and weakness of Nature, the 
 baseness and nobility of humanity. Under- 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 2 1 3 
 
 stan din g_jthe problems of the heart better than 
 those of the head, they translated them into 
 the unveiled terms of their intimate language, 
 giving free vent to their versions and theories, 
 but aggressively in their loyal partisanship and 
 their obstinate servility to family and name. It 
 was a pleasure to look up and see them, to 
 catch a furtive greeting or a demonstration of 
 admiration. Their_unselnsh delight in the en- 
 joyment of others gave a consecration to it. 
 
 " I warrant you, Madame Morel has courage, — 
 a little baby at home, and introducing a young 
 lady in society." 
 
 " Look at Madame Edmond's old beau, Mon- 
 sieur Brouy ! He looks like a Papa Noel." 
 
 "He/ that grand seigneur Benoit drinking off 
 his champagne ! " 
 
 " Brought him on a silver waiter ! 
 
 " C'cst ca des manieres ! " 
 
 " Benoit has luck ! " 
 
 " No, Benoit has what they call genius ! " 
 
 "He is n ot the worst-dressed person in the \ 
 room, either ! " 
 
 " Why not? He was educated in Paris ! He 
 should dress well and play well too ! " 
 
2 1 4 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " It is his old Madame who is proud now, 
 keinf" 
 
 " Look, look my children, look ! Madame 
 Montyon ! " They all craned their necks to see. 
 
 " Madame Montyon ! " 
 
 " Eh, but what finery ! " 
 
 " What airs ! " 
 
 "Madame is Parisian now! she is not a com- 
 mon creole ! Oh, no ! she had to bring white 
 servants with her from Paris. She cannot stand 
 the color ! " 
 
 " Well ! She has not grown younger nor 
 prettier." 
 
 " Poor Monsieur Laflor ! No wonder he shot 
 himself! " 
 
 " Shot himself? He took poison." 
 
 " But my old master was there." 
 
 " So was mine — in Paris." 
 
 " But he did not ' suicide ' at all ! He died of 
 apoplexy. I was there myself. I went to the 
 funeral," protested a third. 
 
 " Of course they said that to deceive the priest, 
 but he ' suicided ' all the same." 
 
 " Ah, $a/ But you must n't abuse politeness ! 
 You can't come on the stairs ! Look over as 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 2 1 5 
 
 m uch as you please, but not to be seen, heint " 
 One of the women of the house spoke sharply 
 to the crowd above. 
 
 " It 's not me ! It 's not me ! " came a score 
 of whispers; " it 's Nourrice ! " 
 
 " Nourrice ! For the love of — " 
 
 " Eh, poor devil ! But let her come, Olym- 
 pia," came in antistrophe from the crowd on 
 the steps. " She '11 soon go away ; she never 
 stays long." 
 
 " Here, Nourrice ! here ! " 
 
 " By me, Nourrice ! " 
 
 " Here 's a nice place for you, Nourrice ! " 
 
 The kind-hearted women moved this way and 
 that to find a place for her on the steps. 
 
 Two long, thin, naked, yellow feet, caked with 
 mud, came down the steps, feeling their way 
 over the carpet, and an old_\voman stiffly sat 
 in the corner offered, tucking her ragged, soiled 
 skirt about her, and drawing her piece of shawl 
 over her breast. Her arms were bare, and the 
 elbow-joints projected sharply. Her kerchief 
 seemed to have worn in holes on her head ; the 
 gray wool stuck out everywhere, like moss from 
 an old mattress. She had drifted in from the 
 
2i6 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 st reet th rough the back gate, in her rags, her dirt, 
 andjh er me ndicancy, like some belated bug at- 
 tracted from the distant swamps to the gaslight. 
 
 They began to joke her in a rough, good- 
 natured way. 
 
 " He ! but, Nourrice, you love balls still? " 
 
 " Like old times, hein, Nourrice? " 
 
 " You could show them how to dance, 
 Nourrice? " 
 
 " Who used to run off to the balls at night, 
 Nourrice? " for they all knew her, — a character 
 famous for escapades in the old times. 
 
 But the old woman paid as little attention to 
 them as if she had not heard them. The lips 
 of her sunken mouth, into which all the wrin- 
 kles of her face converged, were glued together; 
 and so the comments resumed their way without 
 regard to her. 
 
 "Whom is she dancing with there, — that 
 little Mamzelle of the Goupilleaus? " 
 
 " Eh ! but she 's not pretty ! " 
 
 " Not pretty? Mamzelle Motte not pretty? 
 Ah, par exemple ! " Marcelite's voice took an- 
 other tone from that in which she had criticised 
 others. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 2 1 7 
 
 " Chut! it is her Mamzelle ! " 
 
 " Here is ]\IadameJa Grande-Duchesse again." 
 They had all been attendants on the opera-bouffe, 
 and' could fix a title on Madame Montyon as 
 well as any one^ 
 
 " She has not got any prettier, that 's the 
 truth ! " 
 
 " Nourrice ! Nourrice ! " shaking her by the 
 shoulder, " look, look — your old mistress! " 
 
 " A nice old mistress, vas! " 
 
 " A mistress who was too good to own slaves ; 
 she had to sell them." 
 
 " Madame had susceptibilities ; Madame was a 
 Parisian, not a Creole." 
 
 " H/ / Nourrice, that's the God's truth, isn't 
 it? $he sold you? " 
 
 " Sold the nurse of her baby, — Seigneur ! " 
 
 "It was not her baby; it was the first one's 
 baby." 
 
 " That 's the reason she was jealous, — jealous 
 oXJMourrice ; " and they all laughed except Nour- 
 rice herself, who pressed her thin fingers over 
 her mouth and looked on the crowd below. 
 
 " And the little boy, the young man, where is 
 he?" 
 
 <" 
 
2 1 8 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " Oh, but I would like to see him, — Monsieur 
 Florval." 
 
 "Florval? Charles, you mean." 
 
 " It is you who do not know what you are 
 talking about; his name is Charles Florval." 
 
 "Ask Nourrice; she knows." 
 
 " She used to nurse him; he was the apple of 
 her eye, poor wretch ! " one whispered, pointing 
 to Nourrice. 
 
 " I remember him well. Such a temper ! a 
 perfect little devil ! but Nourrice could always 
 manage him." 
 
 A late comer, a very late corneiv ascended the 
 stairs, and they all stood up to let him pass. 
 He walked as if hurrying from a danger, his 
 large blond face exhibiting the nervous panic 
 of a bashful man, — a panic not assuaged by 
 the coolly critical eyes that scanned him up the 
 long way, — eyes that were pitiless to anything 
 like a social infirmity. 
 
 " But who is he? " 
 
 " Pas connais li." 
 
 "Not one of us, sure," meaning Creoles. 
 
 " An American from up-town." 
 
 " Some rich American," corrected another. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 2 1 9 
 
 He soon descended ; the nervousness driven 
 from his face to his hands, — great, stout hands, 
 which worked incessantly, smoothing his white 
 gloves, the sleeve of his coat, and travelling up to 
 his cravat. He avoided the gaze of the women, 
 betraying a fatal cowardice, and made his way, 
 through the old gentlemen around the punch- 
 bowl, to the parlors. He was, in fact, a debu- 
 tant. No young girl could have been more 
 overcome on entering the room than he ; no one 
 could have felt more helpless and bashful ; no 
 one could have more excusably yielded to the 
 strong temptation to flight. \ He felt awkward in 
 his new clothes, not one article of which was an 
 acquaintance of more than an hour's standing: 
 he was vexed that their delay in coming had 
 postponed his arrival at the ball until such an 
 ostentatiously late hour; and the people all 
 around him were as new as his clothes. His 
 long quiet evenings at the plantation, after the 
 hard day's work, came up before him. There 
 hje_was_.at_ease; there he was master; there, on 
 the finest plantation in St. James's Parish, he was 
 in a position to inspire, not feel, a panic. He re- 
 mained at the door stock-still under the charm 
 

 220 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 of retrospection, until some deputy of the Fleu- 
 rissant family, all apologies and fine speeches, 
 put an end to the uncomplimentary position. 
 According to etiquette he was taken around the 
 circle and introduced to every individual, chap- 
 eron and relative, composing it. 
 
 " Monsieur Morris F rank." 
 
 " Monsieur Maurice Frank." 
 
 " Monsieur Maurice Frank." 
 
 " Of the Parish of St. James." 
 
 " Of the Ste. Marie plantation of the Parish 
 of St. James." 
 
 The repetition, reinforcing name with title, 
 title with name, accumulated such a deposit of 
 self-esteem, that at the end of it he could really 
 assume the air of a young proprietor with a large 
 bank-account, — the air which distinguished the 
 plantationless, bank-accountless young scions 
 about him. 
 
 " From St. James, you say, — from St. James, 
 Monsieur Fleurissant? What a chance! He 
 may know something of an old friend of mine, 
 a particular friendN Monsieur Deron, — Phi- 
 lippe Deron, of the Ste. Helena plantation." 
 
 The dance was still going on, — the soft, light 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 221 
 
 dresses crushing up against him, the bare arms 
 grazing him, and the white necks everywhere, 
 like the dropping petals of the Malmaison roses 
 from the vine on his gallery at home. He had 
 to move this way and that, to keep out of the 
 waltz. 
 
 " Monsieur Deron, — Philippe Deron? " 
 
 At first he could only bow low and reveren- 
 tially, with blushes of pleasure. His language 
 could not come on the instant, before such a 
 volume of black velvet and a diamond neck- 
 lace, that was so beautiful it charmed the be- 
 holders into admiration of the neck it encircled, 
 and puffy marabout feathers, like his own tender 
 ducklings at home, in her hair. 
 
 " Monsieur Philippe Deron? " 
 
 His face lighted with pleasure at the ease of 
 the reply: " Philippe Deron? Intimately; his 
 plantation is next to mine." 
 
 " And his crop, — his crop last year? " 
 
 " Superb." 
 
 "Superb? Ah, you see that! The fox! 
 Where is Goupilleau ? Goupilleau must hear 
 that! Come with me ; we will find Goupilleau. 
 You just tell Goupilleau that. A superb crop ! 
 
222 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 Ah, I have caught you this time, my friend 
 Deron ! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle Pauline Ruche — " 
 
 The introducer had reached the end of the 
 circle, when Madame Montyon prevented the 
 pleasure about to be expressed on both sides by 
 carrying one of the participants bodily away. 
 
 " Goupilleau ! listen! Ah, that Deron! what 
 turpitude ! " 
 
 The patience as well as the politeness of even 
 a notary, however, can come to an end. 
 
 " To-morrow morning, at ten o'clock, in my 
 office." Monsieur Goupilleau was firm and 
 silent after these words. 
 
 " Montyon. manners ! The manners of a po- 
 liceman^my dear, absolutely," explained Tante 
 Pauline to her companion, whom fate had 
 only released by intervals from her depressing 
 lonesomeness. 
 
 " That is the way with those re volutio n iia ires . 
 They come from the depths ; not from the 
 bourgeoisie, my dear, but from the people, — the 
 people." And she pronounced these words 
 with the unique expression of contempt which 
 she conscientiously reserved for them. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 223 
 
 " That young man ! He is a new beau, evi- 
 dently. Just come in, you say? Well, better 
 late than never. What stature ! The other men 
 look like dwarfs. Ah! our Creole blood is de- 
 generating; we have no more men, only mani- 
 kins. He is a stranger ; he must be a German, 
 he is s o fair . He is ajiobody, top ; a blind per- 
 son could see that! What can the old Montyon > 
 want with him? She has no daughter to marry, 
 
 — 'only a son.' But look, Odile ! O ur Parisia n 
 is at last caught. You see that little creature, 
 that little Motte ! Don't tell me that Eugenie 
 Lareveillere is not an intriguante! Oh, she 
 knows how to manage. He is a parti, my dear, 
 
 — a parti ; no one can deny that. The pjnlyj 
 parti in the room. Goupilleau? Mon Dicu ! 
 when a woman has been Lareveillere for fifty 
 years, who can ' Goupilleau ' her all of a sud- 
 den? Ah, see there! S he goes rapidly; our 
 young Creole girls are learning from the Ameri- 
 cans the art to flirt. \_Flurrter, she pronounced 
 it.] You know it means for the young lady 
 to pretend to be in love, in order to induce the 
 young man to be so in reality. What ! Odile's 
 husband? Henri Maziel? Not a cent, my dear." 
 
 - 
 
224 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 She turned to her interlocutor on the left. 
 " He is drawing the devil by the tail, I hear." 
 (// tire le diablc par la queued) 
 
 " Not a cent !" She had said it of almost every 
 one in the room, not from default of imagina- 
 tion, but from the monotonously truthful, un- 
 fortunate circumstances. 
 
 " The on dit," — Tante Pauline suddenly 
 remembered that she had let a precious subject 
 pass without relating all she knew about it, — 
 "the on dit about this young girl, — you must 
 have heard it. Odile, you have heard it, have 
 you not? Quite romantic ; of course, they tried 
 to hush it. Very naturally; but it is the truth, 
 nevertheless. I see nothing in it to be ashamed 
 of, or, of course, I would not repeat it. Ma- 
 dame Hirtemont told me she got it from Arte- 
 mise, the coiffcuse, — Artemise Angely, you 
 remember; she belonged to Amenaide Angely. 
 Well — " 
 
 " Tante Pauline ! " — the fan was tapping 
 away: the young married woman extended 
 her hand and arrested it, — " for the love of 
 Heaven do__not Repeat that silly story ! It is 
 so absurd — and justice to the poor young lady. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 225 
 
 Besides, remember how kind Eugenie Goupil- 
 ieau has always been to you." 
 
 " If it is a story, there is no harm in repeat- 
 ing it. I don't say positively it is the truth. 
 Silly ! It is not silly, even if it were true." 
 
 She resented bitterly any imputation of ma- 
 liciousness. Her kind heart repudiated any 
 desire to do evil. She talked simply with the 
 vague idea of affording gratification. She was 
 also pr oud of her reputation of knowing every- 
 body and everything, and desired to sustain it. 
 So, to prove her perfect disinterestedness, and 
 to leave it to the impartiality of her hearers, 
 she related all the circumstances from the be- 
 ginning, — from the very beginning, where Arte- 
 rnise, the coiffcusc, had been called in to comb 
 Madame Lareveillere for a grand concert and 
 distribution of prizes. "And such an eclair- 
 cissement, my dear, about Eugenie's toilet mys- 
 teries," etc., carrying her story successfully 
 and fluently to the end. " Ajthough the_Mottes 
 are__of good family, best Creole blood. Marie 
 Modeste Viel was at the convent the same 
 time as I, — the old Ursulines' Convent. Your 
 mother was there too, Odile. She was pretty 
 r 5 
 
226 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 enough, but delicate, and so gnian, gnian,'[ 
 uttering the criticism with appropriate grimace 
 and intonation. 
 
 " Alphonse Motte was a very nice young man, 
 quite comme il faitt. Not over-burdened with 
 intelligence, however, or he would have seen 
 how delicate she was ; every one else knew that 
 she could not live long. Oh, the daughter has 
 lost nothing by being at the Goupilleaus' ! It 
 was very kind of old Armand Goupilleau to 
 take her in. He 's no relation, — at least, not 
 that I know of; " which effectually decided 
 the matter for her hearers, human certainty of 
 knowledge not going in New Orleans beyond 
 that possessed by Mademoiselle Pauline Ruche. 
 
 The story, as water by capillary attraction, 
 soaked farther and farther away from the 
 fountain-head, making the tour of the room 
 as exactly as Mr. Morris Frank had done; go- 
 ing from one to another until all had become 
 permeated with it to such an extent that each 
 one felt authorized to issue a private version 
 from such facts as her own eyes could see, 
 her own ears hear, and her own intelligence 
 logically suggest, with the young girl in ques- 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 227 
 
 tion dancing before them in a fluttering white 
 dress, with a crown of blue myosotis on her 
 black hair, her face beautiful in her com- 
 plete self-surrender to the joy of the passing 
 moment, her partner making no attempt to 
 conceal his admiration. 
 
 " He is really the only parti in the room." 
 " YeSj_he Jias money; he can marry." 
 " He 's welcome to it at that price, — the fa- 
 ther running away from his country during a 
 war. It is not a Villars who could do that." 
 
 " This was it ! This was happiness ! " Since 
 she had worn long dresses Marie had caught 
 it every now and then. In the fragment of a 
 dream or in one of those fleeting day-moments 
 that shoot like meteors at times across the 
 serenity of a young girl's mind, diffusing a 
 strange, supernatural sensation of causeless 
 bliss, passing away with a sigh, — the absent- 
 minded, causeless sigh of young girls, who, 
 when asked about it, answer truthfully, " I do 
 not know, it came just so ; " a sensation of 
 bliss which their age does not permit them to 
 understand, but which they recognize distinctly 
 afterwards, when it comes at the proper time; 
 
228 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 and then they feel that they have lived and 
 known this moment ages before. 
 
 All around Marie Modeste were dancing her 
 school companions, young ladies now, — and 
 she was a young lady too! — almost disguised 
 one from another in their beauty and mature 
 manner. Could that be Elmina, who had passed 
 hours in the corner with a foolscap on; and 
 Loulou, who had almost wept her eyes away 
 over faults of orthography; and Ernestine, 
 who had monopolized the leathern medal ; and 
 Gabrielle, who had waged a persistent war, a 
 perfect siege of Troy in duration, against her 
 music-teacher; and all those who had passed 
 out of the gates of St. Denis before her, year 
 after year, graduated into the then far-distant 
 great world ? These did not dance, but walked 
 around with the languid movements and pre- 
 occupied eyes of young matrons. "What a 
 bright, what a beautiful world ! Was there 
 ever a dark day in it? Was it ever so bright or 
 so beautiful to any one before?" So they all 
 thought, each one dancing in a fresh, new, 
 original creation, — a special paradise, full for 
 each one to name and classify. 1 Her first illu- 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 229 
 
 sion goes when the young girl finds her own 
 Eden neither the brightest nor the best, nor an 
 individual creation ; the last goes when she finds 
 that she is not the only woman in it, but that 
 Eves are under every tree. | 
 
 When they looked at anything, they looked at 
 themselves in the mirrors, or at their partners, 
 not at the crow's-feet and wrinkles which had 
 travelled from the hearts to the faces of the 
 debutantes of twenty-five years ago, the pos- 
 sessors, then, of a paradise too. 
 
 The young girls had of course consulted the 
 bonne aventure about him, — the future one 
 whom they hoped to meet this or some other 
 near evening. Was he to be fair or brown, tall 
 or short, widower or bachelor? Candles were 
 even now burning before distant altars to hasten 
 his coming, placed by the zealous hands of some 
 of those very nurses out on the stairs ; the saints 
 were being arraigned, perhaps, by some of the 
 impatient mother-spectators about him ; all to 
 be forgotten in the supreme moment by the 
 most interested ones ! Quadrilles, dcux-temps, 
 and waltzes succeeded one another; but the 
 heedless young girls thought only of the pleas- 
 
230 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 ure of the dance, forgetting the profit. How 
 could they do otherwise, with that new blood 
 beating in their veins, and new life bursting in 
 their hearts under the forceful music of Benoit, 
 — that w arm, f ree,, full, subtilely sensualized 
 African music? The buds themselves would 
 have burst into blossom under the strains, and 
 the little birds anticipated spring. 
 
 " Ah, what a beautiful world it is ! How 
 good it is to live ! How good God is ! " 
 
 And it came about as Marie Modeste danced 
 with the young " Parisianized Creole; " it is so 
 inexplicable, so indescribable ; to state it destroys 
 the delicacy of it; to confess it almost vulgar- 
 izes it; but an impression was made on their 
 fresh, impressionable hearts, slight and faint, 
 easy to efface or subdue, but more easily 
 kept alive and fixed. Neither knew — how 
 could they? it was the first time — what it was. 
 A change came over the charm upon her; a 
 dissatisfaction crept into the young girl's heart; 
 her pleasure all departed. When she spoke, it 
 was to perceive that she was silly; she became 
 conscious of marked inferiority in her appear- 
 ance ; she was wearied ; and when she looked in 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 231 
 
 the mirror now, it reflected not her face but her 
 mood, j And he, seeing the light pass from her 
 face, became self-accusing, self-depreciative, and 
 taciturn ; his life became a hateful barren to 
 look back upon, his stepmother an intolerable 
 irritant whom he wished to deny before Marie. 
 
 When the time came for them to part, they 
 both started, as if being together were a sudden 
 impropriety. She had not a glance to encour- 
 age him in her embarrassment. He followed 
 her upstairs to the dressing-room without a 
 word to retrieve himself with, so absorbed in 
 the new sensation that he stumbled overtan old 
 negro woman who had apparently forgotten, in 
 her enjoyment of the scene, to take herself 
 away with the rest. ; 
 
 Her companions it was that had forgotten to 
 drive her away into the back-yard for supper, or 
 into the back-street for shelter. The music crept 
 through her brain like soft fingers through her 
 matted, knotted, massed hair, loosening the tan- 
 gles in her half-crazy mind. " How would she 
 know him, they were all so much alike, the young 
 men, and all dressed the same? " 
 
 " Myjittle-hear-fe— My little love. My little 
 
 1 
 
232 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 kiss. My little soul." A long-buried litany of 
 diminutive tenderness, the irrepressible cajoleries 
 of colored Creole nurses ; she kept her fingers 
 pressed tight against her lips; not a word of 
 the myriads that teemed in her heart disturbed 
 the scented, warm atmosphere. She nodded 
 at times, and dreamed she was at the bedside 
 of a patient. The lace-lined trains of tired 
 ladies on their way to the dressing-room swept 
 over her. At the sound of every man's step 
 she would raise her head alertly, and the gleam 
 in her eye would transfuse the white film that 
 obscured it. 
 
 A little boy Avith black hair which she used 
 to curl, black eyes which she used to kiss, and 
 lace petticoats ! If he would only come up the 
 stair that way ! Oh, he will know me ! He 
 will do me justice ! He will give me satisfaction 
 for all, — all ! His poor old Nourrice ! His 
 nigger ! His dog ! His Patate ! 
 
 Her menial heart, which had cast tendernesses 
 on her nursling, cast humiliations on herself. 
 Her thoughts flew like martins back to old times, 
 and there dallied and rested. She was no longer 
 the eccentric old beggar Nourrice, the bedfellow 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 233 
 
 of street curs, the ravager of garbage-barrels, but 
 a pampered, spoiled nurse, the unmanageable, 
 the wild, thejreckless quadroon, of a wild, reck- 
 less period. Some one stumbled over her; she 
 caught hold of the baluster and pulled herself 
 up, instinct with old servile apology. Bidden 
 by the same impulse that had brought her there, 
 she followed after, close to the footsteps of the 
 young man, stretching out her arms to catch 
 him, to detain him. 
 
 " I know you ! I know you ! It 's God did 
 it, — God ! " 
 
 She had caught him somehow; half pulling, 
 half pushing, had got him through the open 
 door to the dark gallery behind. 
 
 " Your Nourrice ! Your poor old Nourrice ! " 
 
 He had not p ronounced the word in twenty 
 years. " Nourrice." It meant then a world of 
 solicitude, — protection from danger, covering 
 from cold, food when hungry, drink when 
 thirsty, a cooling, a soothing, a lullaby, a great 
 strong, dark bulwark to fly to, a willing Provi- 
 dence in reach of baby arms. He stretched out 
 his arms again at the word ; they reached far 
 over the limp, mal-odorous object at his feet. 
 
234 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " It 's God sent you, — God ! " 
 
 He felt her lips, a soft, humid, toothless mass, 
 pressing again and again on his hands. Beyond 
 her, over the irregular roofs and chimneys and 
 balconies, the skies stretched full of hot, gleam- 
 ing, Southern stars ; the music from the piano, 
 the chattering voices in the dressing-room, filled 
 the gallery. She kept raising her voice louder 
 and louder, for her own dull ears to hear the 
 epitome of her sufferings ; he could hear plainly 
 enough. 
 
 " Little master ! I 've no home, no bed, no 
 food, no nothing. I 'm 'most naked ! I 'm 'most 
 starved ! " 
 
 The heart-rending sob of human desperation 
 broke her voice. 
 ^_ " Nourrice ! Poor old Nourrice ! Patate! " 
 
 It was an inspiration, — his recollection of the 
 old nickname. God must have ordered it with 
 -the rest. 
 
 "Patate! You haven't forgotten 'Patate'? 
 Saviour! " 
 
 Her tears began to fall ; they should have 
 been soiled, wrinkled, bleared, and distorted, 
 from such eyes. " I am not lazy, little Master ! 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 235 
 
 I have worked and worked ! but God knows I 
 am too old. I was an old woman when I nursed 
 you. I can hardly see, I can hardly hear, I can 
 hardly stand ; and I am sick, I am diseased." 
 
 " I 've no home, no bed, no food, no noth- 
 ing ! " she repeated. " The little children run 
 after me in the street, they throw dirt at me ; 
 ' He! la folic! la folic! ' " raising her voice in 
 piercing imitation of their cruelty. "The little 
 nigger children, — the rottenness of the earth! 
 I fall in the gutters ! The policemen drag me 
 off. They club me; they beat me all over; they 
 tear my clothes ! — nigger policemen, little mas- 
 ter ! " Passion exhausted her breath at every 
 item ; her voice came hoarse and gusty out of 
 her exposed, bony chest. " Clubbed by nigger 
 policemen ! Ah, God ! They lock me up in 
 the calaboose. Poor me ! " 
 
 Her breath and recital ended in a wail of mis- 
 ery. (_The wail and the misery reached him, not 
 here, but in that bright, gay, selfish world of 
 Paris, where he Jiad passed a happy youth, a 
 useless manhood.J " France? What was he, an 
 American, a Creole, doing in France when such 
 things were passing in America? " 
 
2 $6 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " ftwas__not_right to sell me ! It was not 
 right to sell the nurse of a child ! " 
 
 "Sell?" he repeated. "Sell?" 
 
 " I begged on my knees, I begged and begged ! " 
 
 " Sell," he thought, " my nurse, — the nurse of 
 my mother, — sell, h.er, and spend the money in 
 France" ! He felt a hot wave in his heart, as if 
 it were blushing. 
 
 "What did God free me for, Jiein? To be 
 beaten by niggers? To be run after by little 
 nigger dogs ? Why did n't He kill me ? 
 
 " Philo ! Odette ! Tom ! " They were her 
 children. She began to curse them, horribly, 
 frightfully. 
 
 " They__ -Stole my money ! They drove me 
 out! They put the police on me! They set 
 the children to insult me ! I curse them ! I 
 curse them ! " 
 
 Her shawl had fallen from her shoulders. She 
 pulled and tore in the darkness at her shrivelled 
 bare breasts, as if to tear away the ungrateful lips 
 they had once nourished. He picked up the 
 / wretched rag and folded it around her. It felt 
 good to touch her ill-treated limbs, to soothe 
 the violence away from her trembling head. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 237 
 
 " Hush ! Hush ! " She might be overheard. 
 He tried to conform his Parisian accent to her 
 Creole ears ; he even recollected some fragmen- 
 tary creolisms. " Hush ! hush ! Philo, Odette, 
 Tom ; forget them ! It is Chariot you must re- 
 member, — your little Chariot; eh, Nourrice? " 
 
 The Goupilleaus were going downstairs now, 
 — the husband and wife arm in arm. He should 
 have been there for the young lady. 
 
 " Give me satisfaction ! Give me justice, Mon- 
 sieur Charles ! " 
 
 He remembered now distinctly hearing her 
 call his father so, — "Monsieur Charles." A , 
 faint, shadowy form came out of his memory; 
 it never came more distinctly than that, but he 
 knew it for his ow n mother, and as he thought 
 of her, his eyes again sought the stairway; the 
 blue myosotis wreath was just disappearing. 
 His own mother was a Creole girl too, like. 
 Marie Modeste Motte. 
 
 " A little cabin somewhere, and a few pica- 
 yunes to keep me from starving until I die ! 
 You are rich ! rich ! " What an accusation here, 
 at this time, in this city, from such a source. 
 Rich ! great God ! at what expense ! 
 
 /L 
 
238 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " To-morrow, Nourrice ! To-morrow, the 
 cabin; now, the picayunes!" 
 
 His white gloves received the soil of the 
 gutter-mud as he took her horny, wrinkled 
 hands in his. 
 
 " And those mulattresses ! those impudent 
 mulattresses in their fine clothes ! As if they 
 had not been freed too ! " 
 
 She was a mulattress herself, but she could 
 not forbear the insult, the curiously galling in- 
 sult invented by the pure blacks. 
 
 " To-morrow ! To-morrow morning, Nour- 
 rice ! See, it is almost here ! " It was not far off 
 — the dawn. The stars were beginning to look 
 pale and weary as if the ball had lasted too long 
 for them also. On the gallery, the darkness 
 was becoming gray. 
 
 The old woman felt her way along by the 
 balustrade to the back-stairs. After waiting so 
 many years, it was not too much to wait a few 
 hours more, — out on the banquette in front of 
 his house. She would follow him home ; she 
 could not trust even him ; when he went out in 
 the morning it would be better to be there to 
 remind him. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 239 
 
 The repetition of quadrilles, waltzes, dettx- 
 temps continued, but the gayety was no longer 
 in the parlors; from the supper-room the guests 
 went to the dressing-room ; the procession was 
 turning to the street again. 
 
 As Tante Pauline had said, it was a kind of 
 judgment-day for the poor Creoles. It is not 
 pleasant to be in debt, but it is] a comfortable 
 mitigation of it to have an ocean between one 
 and one's creditor. They could not help feeling 
 towards Madame Montyon as on the real judg- 
 ment-day the poor sinners may feel towards the 
 archangel who wakes them from the sweet secu- 
 rity of death to receive long-delayed punish- 
 ment. If she had not said a word, her presence 
 would have proved too suggestive for their con- 
 sciences j 1 but the good lady belonged to a school 
 which did not economize powder and shot when 
 occasion required, nor did she breath ; she car- 
 ried out her plans only too well. At the end of 
 her prepared speeches, finding that the respon- 
 dent did not assume the role of either thinking 
 or speaking attributed to him or to her, she was 
 enabled to elaborate her own manner and argu- 
 ment a indiscrdtion. The initiative of polite- 
 
240 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 ness had been tried, the propitiation of a cordial 
 welcome, the head held high to avoid her, or at 
 least the eyes, so that only the marabout feath- 
 ers came in the plane of vision, — the attitude that 
 expresses an effort to keep on a level with ele- 
 vated principles, the attitude generally of the poor 
 
 / in pocket. Some quietly avoided her; others 
 fled before her, but nothing diverted her. She 
 lent not only one hand but two hands to her 
 affairs. Her conversation rolled on uninter- 
 ruptedly, exhaling rent-bills, due-bills, promis- 
 sory notes, mortgages, and every other variety 
 of debt which had been used to procure money 
 from her or old Arvil. \ Her voice took the 
 suavity out of the truffles, the bouquet from the 
 champagne. The Creole gentlemen (and who 
 says Creole says gastronome) had never eaten 
 their pates, woodcock, and galantine with such 
 obtuse palates. Law, conscience, honor ! She 
 arrayed herself and her obligations under the 
 
 / protection of each and all. " Extravagant as 
 Creoles, no wonder they cannot pay their debts ! 
 In Paris, millionnaires and ricJiissimes alone 
 give such suppers," she screamed, holding her 
 black-velvet train high up, out of the way of 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 241 
 
 the waiters. " And Goupilleau says the com- 
 munity is bankrupt." 
 
 " My dear lady, we must make an effort 
 for our young people; we must marry our 
 daughters." 
 
 Mjirriag e was th e_]ast necessity for her to 
 recognize. 
 
 " But on what basis, — on what basis, in the 
 name_ of H ea ven, do you intend to found your 
 families? " 
 
 "On love, pure and simple; it is the best 
 we have, having no money." 
 
 "Love! Love! And what of honesty, eh?"^ 
 Can you buy bread for love in New Orleans? 
 meat? rent houses? pay debts with love?" 
 
 " Would to Heaven we could, Madame ! " 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur Frank," she said, — she had 
 taken a fancy to the young German, and kept v 
 him near her, — " it is a community of Philippe 
 Derons ! Apropos, you will not forget to come 
 to Goupilleau's office to-morrow at ten? We 
 v/ill show Mr. Philippe Deron whom he has to 
 deal with. You see that old lady over there, — 
 the one with the black lace cap, — well, to this 
 day she owes me for a servant, a valuable 
 16 
 
242 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 nurse. And she can come to balls, to introduce 
 a grand-daughter into society, I believe. I re- 
 minded her of it this evening. And Goupilleau 
 says that the law does not compel the payment 
 of such debts ; the law ! yes, the law ! but honor, 
 the famous old Creole honor ! For gentlemen 
 and ladies, all debts are debts of honor ! " 
 
 It was unfortunately said in the hearing of 
 one who, though the least solvent pecuniarily, 
 was good for any amount payable by the 
 code, — Monsieur Henri Maziel. 
 
 " That, that is a little strong," he muttered, — 
 " $a, ccst U7i pcu fort." 
 
 He sought out some undertakers of duelling 
 pomps and ceremonies, who promptly requested 
 Monsieur Charles Montyon, then descending 
 the staircase] to furnish at his earliest conven- 
 ience reparation to Creole honor impugned by 
 his step-mother. ) The waiters carried it to 
 the back-yard, the guests whispered it in the 
 dressing-room; Madame Montyon herself was 
 the only one to ignore it. 
 
 The last carriages rolled away in the break- 
 ing of a rjew day. The 28th of December 
 succeeded to the inheritance of consequence 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 243 
 
 left by the 27th. Old Madame Fleurissant 
 slept, under the weight of her ninety, ninety- 
 two, or ninety-five years, the hermetically 
 sealed sleep of the aged, with no crack or 
 crevice for gnawing thought to intrude and 
 torture the brain ; while her guests carried to 
 their homes and into their future lives the 
 germs of variations in both which she through 
 her soiree had sown. 
 
 Morris Frank, never more secure in the pos- 
 session of his magnificent plantation, went over 
 his nightly resume of the details composing 
 it, — the acres under cultivation, the uncleared 
 forest, the sweep of the river-front, the sugar- 
 house, the hands, even to the names of the 
 mules ; his settlement with his merchant that 
 day: his bank-book heavy with amounts of 
 deposit. His elation for the first time was un- 
 tempered by\ regret for his father, whose toil- 
 some life and recent death had made him heir 
 to it all. In his superb physical strength and 
 accumulated fortune he had but to put his 
 hands out to grasp the pleasures of life, — his 
 great, strong hands made to grasp, and his 
 great, strong heart made to enjoy. The mag- 
 
244 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 nificent, complimentary Madame Montyon had 
 also her share in his self-satisfaction. Through 
 his dreams ran the appointment to meet her the 
 next day in the notary's office, and he sought 
 in his mind all possibly useful information with 
 which to confuse the plausible Philippe Deron.J 
 
 Madame Montyon, whose fatigues blurred the 
 enjoyable retrospect of her evening's business, 
 felt only a slee pj^_trjumph. The imported white 
 maid missed her usual scolding, as she removed 
 the panache of feathers and velvet train, — with 
 professional tenderness and solicitude for them, 
 professional indifference to their wearer. 
 
 To Madame Odile Maziel, instead of slum- 
 ber came a vigil filled with the recollection of 
 an evemng of mortification and ennui, domi- 
 nated by the prophecies she had defied 'at her 
 marriage, which came now to brood over her 
 future like sluggish crows. 
 
 Y oung Montyon, in his feelings an old Mon- 
 .tyon, looked through a veil of cigar-smoke at the 
 old raving Nourrice and the adjacent childish re- 
 membrances her presence evoked ; at his native 
 city, and the people whom his step-mother and 
 father had abandoned in time of crisis; at the 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 245 
 
 irrepressible step-mother herself, at the immi- 
 nent choice of swords or pistols her indiscretion 
 had brought upon him, and the probable even- 
 tualities of the morrow; but last, and longest, 
 he looked at a crown of blue myosotis over 
 eyes that seemed the eyes of a thousand women 
 in one, andlat a face made from the core of his 
 own heart, and at the history of it which he 
 had overheard from his station near the parlor 
 door. \ 
 
 And Marie Modeste; the music, the inexora- 
 ble music, carried her around and around, on 
 and on, until, horribly awake, yet expiring with 
 fatigue, the early church-bells dissolved the 
 infernal charm. She sank like a feather into 
 a sleep of eider-down, where dreams came to 
 tease her with sudden fallings, or with hints and 
 suggestions touched her sensibilities to the color- 
 ing of a blush, the starting of a tear; v her feet 
 twitching and moving still in the waltz, — the 
 one waltz with the young Parisian. 
 
 Even a soiree, however unusual the occur- 
 rence, could not disturb the equilibrium of 
 Monsieur Goupilleau's notarial existence. He 
 descended at his habitual hour the next morn- 
 
246 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 ing to his office, situated on the ground-floor 
 of his dwelling, and resumed the interrupted 
 business of yesterday; leaving stoically on the 
 threshold all thoughts of the seducing comforts 
 and luxuries so recently installed in his chambers 
 upstairs. 
 
 He was soon immersed in the " Succession 
 d'Arvil," extracting the papers from a tin box, 
 smoothing, cataloguing, annotating them, and 
 arranging them in distinct little piles on his 
 long office-table. 
 
 The private door of his office was pushed open 
 by Marce ljte. 
 
 "Monsieur!" she said, "Monsieur!" her 
 voice boding ill news. 
 
 The whole upper stories of his house,, with 
 their treasures of domestic love and happiness, 
 tottered under the notary's sudden fear. 
 
 " Speak quick ! " 
 
 "Monsieur," — she gave vent to a long-re- 
 - pressed excitement, her words coming rapidly, 
 incoherently, — "that, that was Morris Frank 
 v - last night ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " Monsieur Goupilleau gave a sigh of 
 relief. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 247 
 
 "Morris Frank! But who is Morris Frank? 
 Do you know who Morris Frank is? " she 
 asked, raising her voice. 
 
 "Morris Frank?" repeated Monsieur Gou- 
 pilleau, wonderingly. 
 
 She looked at him, still in the doubt which 
 had confused her all night. Would it have 
 been better to say nothing about it? Was it 
 really better to tell? A year ago she would 
 have kept it to herself; now — 
 
 " A little white-headed boy," she bent over 
 and stretched her hand out, at the height of 
 a young child, above the floor, " playing around 
 the plantation quarters with the little negro 
 children, — the _son of th e^oyerseer, a German 
 overse^r^_man_whp hired himself out to whip 
 slaves he was too poor to own ! " Her scathing, 
 fierce tongue brought the fire into her eyes. 
 
 " My God ! Th e son of an overseer at the 
 ball of the aristocrats ! On my old planta- 
 tion?" She read the confused inquiry in the 
 notary's face. " The plantation of Monsieur Al- 
 phonse Motte, the father of my Mamzelle? He 
 lives there still? " Monsieur Goupilleau's face 
 brightened with a discovery. He commenced 
 
248 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 a question : " The son of the overseer on Mon- 
 sieur Motte's plantation? " 
 
 " That night ! That night ! It__makes me 
 crazy to think of it ! The ringing of alarm-bells, 
 the shooting of cannon, the gun-boats coming 
 down the river, the negroes running away, 
 setting fire, stealing; and the soldiers, soldiers 
 everywhere, none of our white gentlemen about. 
 My God ! we were so frightened we could not 
 think; we left everything in the house and ran. 
 -We got in a cart; it broke down; we walked 
 miles. When we got to the town,) what did we 
 see? The young white boy the soldiers were 
 hanging ! No wonder she died, Mamzelle 
 Marie ! "j She tried to steady her hand on the 
 back of a chair, but it shook and trembled to 
 the floor. 
 
 The front door of the office flew wide. Ma- 
 dame Montyon had jerked the knob out of the 
 hand of the bowing clerk. 
 
 "He ! Goupilleau, my friend ! " she exclaimed 
 brusquely; "on time, you see! To work; to 
 work! What have we here, eh? " 
 
 She had divested herself of so much the 
 night before, and invested herself in so little 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 249 
 
 this morning, that really her manner (which was 
 always the same) alone remained to identify 
 her. 
 
 She threw back the ends of her India shawl, 
 which she had put over her purple cashmere 
 morning peignoir, and tossed up her black lace 
 veil, under which the gray hair stood out 
 crinkled and crisp from the crimping and ma- 
 nipulation of the evening before. 
 
 "Just out of bed, you see! Only a cup of 
 coffee ! " 
 
 She seated herself at the table and began 
 recklessly to open, examine, mingle, and scatter 
 the papers arranged by the notary. 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau had made a sign to 
 Marcelite to place herself in a corner. 
 
 " Pardon me, Madame," he said to the lady, , 
 rescuing some of the documents, " but these 
 papers are now in my possession. I am re- 
 sponsible for them." 
 
 " Pooh ! pooh ! " She was about to express 
 further contempt of the admonition, when] her 
 words were cut short by the surprising appear- 
 ance of her son. He was as much astounded as 
 she at the meeting, and more confused. 
 
250 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " My son ! Up at this hour ! " She extended 
 her cheek for his morning salute. " What in the 
 world do you want here, with Goupilleau? But 
 what is that — filth? " She got it from her father 
 to select the strongest and coarsest word, but it 
 was not entirely inapplicable to Nourrice, who 
 had followed him in like a spaniel. 
 
 The poor old woman started at the voice ; her 
 ears were younger than her eyes. " Ah, mis- 
 tress ! You do not know me. He has better eyes 
 than you ; he knew me at once ! I Ah, Madame, 
 it was not right to sell me, an old woman, a 
 nurse ! I begged you ! I begged you on my 
 knees ! " J 
 
 Madame Montyon, taken by surprise, wavered 
 under the assault. " Nourrice ! Elvire ! " 
 
 " I was old, I was past the age, I was dis- 
 eased ! " 
 
 "Will you be silent? " She shook her hand 
 before the face of the negro. What revelations, 
 the terror of her motherhood, might not be 
 impending? J 
 
 "To sell a nurse ! God never intended that ! " 
 
 The young man stood in close conversation 
 with the notary. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 2 5 1 
 
 " Eh? What is that, — what is that? " Madame 
 Montyon unceremoniously thrust herself in be- 
 tween them. 
 
 " Only a little cabin somewhere, little master, 
 to keep me out of the gutters ! " Nourrice, 
 afraid still of her old mistress, raised her voice 
 in anxiety. 
 
 "What is this nonsense? what is this crazi- 
 ness?" Madame screamed to her son. To the 
 old woman: " Will you cease that whining? A 
 little cabin? A little policeman! " 
 
 "My baby! My baby! It 's your poor old 
 Nourrice ! " 
 
 " But, my son, what have you got in your 
 head? I never__ received one cent for her, — not 
 one cent ! Those dishonest Montamats ! They 
 were only too glad of the emancipation ! " 
 
 The gentlemen had continued their conver- 
 sation without attention to her. She overheard 
 some of their words. 
 
 "Money! money!" — the clerks in the next 
 room must have heard her excited voice, — " to 
 a wretch like that ! Never ! never ! I forbid 
 it!" She snatched from the notary the paper 
 he had prepared. 
 
252 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 "Do you understand, Charles? I forbid it! 
 I command you to desist ! " She launched full 
 speed into one of her ungovernable tempers. 
 " A check, tudieul a check ! without my advice ! 
 without my consent ! One must have a private 
 /'fortune, tudieu! to pension, to squander, to 
 throw away, — a private fortune ! My money, 
 ^ tudieu ! my money ! " 
 
 To her son's^ _Jace_ arose an expression that 
 only an intolerable insult could provoke; and 
 the temper that seized him, — she knew only 
 too well what that was, if she had not been too 
 blind to see it. He closed his lips and turned 
 away. 
 
 " Enough! Cojne, Npurrice ! " The old 
 
 woman followed him again ; her back — the 
 
 strong back he had once ridden for a horse — 
 
 bent over nearly double ; this time not in play, 
 
 - but in decrepitude. 
 
 He paused at the door and pointed to Nour- 
 rice. He had also thought of a supreme retort, 
 an irreparable one : " She was my nurse, given 
 me by my own mother. You sold her ! " 
 
 The door had not closed on their exit before 
 it was opened again. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 253 
 
 " Mr. Morris Frank, to see Monsieur Goupil- 
 leau by appointment," announced the clerk. 
 
 The young German, fresh, fair, and rosy, had 
 to struggle almost as hard to enter an office as a 
 parlor. " Monsieur," said he, bowing to Mon- 
 sieur Goupilleau ; then, remembering the lady, 
 "Madame," to Madame Montyon ; then he 
 paused, not knowing whether to offer his hand 
 or not, until the opportunity passed, and he had 
 to compose something appropriate to say. 
 
 The notary came to the rescue : " Ah, Mr. 
 Frank ! You are a little early, we are not quite 
 prepared — in fact — " 
 
 " But, Goupilleau ! what do you mean? You 
 are going to let Monseiur Frank go without 
 giving the information? He is a witness, don't 
 you, see,. against Deron." Madame Montyon got 
 this also from her father, — her versatility in 
 passing from one passion to another. 
 
 " As you please, Madame ; interrogate Mr. 
 Frank yourself! " 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau was plainly preoccupied 
 about some other matter now, but she did not 
 see it. ;' She put her young friend through a 
 cross-examination to_rjroye_her„point of view of 
 
254 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 the Creo le ch aracter as .presented by the distant 
 Deron. 
 
 " There, you see, Goupilleau, I am right ! 
 Monsieur Frank proves everything. _A11 you 
 have to do now is to make Deron pay." 
 
 " One moment, Mr. Frank," said Monsieur 
 Goupilleau, as the young man was preparing 
 to leave, " have you any objections to telling 
 me if your plantation, the Ste. Marie plantation 
 in the Parish of St. James, was once the prop- 
 erty of Monsieur Alphonse Motte? " 
 
 The old lady's eyes brightened. She saw a 
 new^^clalm^ a new debt. She looked greedily 
 at the spread papers, and suspiciously at her 
 young friend, ready to detect and expose any 
 subterfuge. 
 
 "Motte? Motte? Is there something there, 
 Goupilleau? Something new? Motte? But who 
 are they? Motte! Motte!" She kept repeat- 
 ing the name to start her ear into recognition. 
 " One of our high-minded, borrow-in-haste-and- 
 repay-at-leisure Creoles? " 
 
 Marcelite came from the corner where she 
 had been waiting. 
 
 " Pardon, Madame, pardon," she said, in 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 255 
 
 eager defence, l " Those words should not be 
 used to designate the deceased Monsieur Al- 
 phonse Motte." 
 
 " Eh ! eh ! " Madame Montyon responded 
 sharply to the assault. " What is this? Whom 
 have we here? One of the family? " 
 
 The quadroon's eyes burned at the insult. 
 The blood rushed to her head, deepening the 
 color of her dark skin, reddening her lips, swell- 
 ing her throat, inflating her nostrils, maddening 
 her beyond all discretion. [_She_raised her voice 
 in the impudent way quadroons know so well, 
 and looked at the white lady with an expression £_ 
 
 which, brave as she was, once she would not 
 have dared. 
 
 "Madame is, perhaps, not satisfied; the in- 
 sults of last night were, perhaps, not enough; 
 Madame apparently does not mind duels ; she 
 would have one every day. Madame, perhaps, 
 loves blood, or perhaps Madame thinks Mon- 
 sieur Henri Maziel cannot^ fight, or perhaps she 
 thinks her son has more lives than one; or — " 
 
 Even Morris Frank was prompt in the emer- ^ 
 gency. He caught Marcelite by the arm. 
 
 " Silence ! " 
 
256 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 " Marcelite ! " the notary raised his voice in 
 anger. 
 
 " Speak ! I command you, wretch ! Gou- 
 pilleau, make her talk, I say ! A duel ! My 
 son ! " 
 
 Physical and verbal violence struggled for 
 the mastery. Her face changed rapidly from 
 crimson to white, then to crimson again ; her 
 lips trembled and became blue. She fell into 
 her chair. Was it apoplexy, or a swoon ? 
 She responded to the quick touch of the 
 notary. 
 
 " Goupilleau ! Goupilleau ! " her voice was 
 all anguish, all submission, now. " She says 
 — she says," pointing in the direction of Mar- 
 celite — " My son ! — a duel ! " She tried to 
 rise, to pull herself up by the help of the table. 
 
 "Wait!" said Monsieur Goupilleau, forcing 
 her back into her chair. " Do not stir ! Not a 
 word until I return ! " 
 
 The little man had a manner which in emer- 
 gencies could rise above occasions and impose 
 commands on the most exalted. 
 
 In the very next room, sitting at one of his 
 desks, plodding over some notarial copying, 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 257 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau possessed the ve ry Su- 
 p.rem£__Court of the Duel, the very infallibility 
 of the code of honor, — a tall, thin, sallow young 
 man, behind whose fierce black moustaches 
 were no front teeth whatever. 
 
 " Ah," thought the notary, after the first 
 glance, " Theod ule is silent; Theodule is mys- 
 terious; Theodule has on his black coat and 
 white cravat, — a duel, sure!" 
 
 The old lady had laid her head on the table. 
 Her vigor had snapped. " My money ! my 
 money ! " and the retort, "My own mother," — 
 that was all she could hear from the buzzing in 
 her ears. What she saw? All she could see; 
 what, as a soldier's daughter, she should have 
 better borne. When she raised her face, on the 
 notary's return, her eyes — her little, strong, bold, 
 brigadier eyes — were weeping. 
 
 " Madame ! " It was the sympathy in Mon- 
 sieur Goupilleau's voice that prepared her for 
 the worst. " Madame, words spoken last night, 
 no doubt in an unguarded moment, insults 
 passed, taxing with dishonor honorable per- 
 sonages, — under the circumstances, Madame, 
 nothing is to be done." He shrugged his shoul- 
 17 
 
 \ 
 
258 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 ders hopelessly, just as Theodule had done. 
 " Gentlemen, even if they have no money, I 
 might say particularly if they have no money, 
 pay their debts of honor. ' 
 
 " Words spoken last night ! but I only said 
 the truth ! " She began to reiterate them an- 
 grily, then changed to an attack on the notary. 
 " Nothing to be done, tudicu ! Nothing to be 
 done ! You dare tell me that, Goupilleau, — 
 me, a mother ! " She had strength enough to 
 rise now, and shake her head at him until 
 her bonnet dropped to the floor. " You dare 
 tell any mother that, when her son is going to 
 fight a duel? " 
 
 The " Succession d'Arvil " lay scattered every- 
 where, — documents folded, unfolded, face up, 
 face down. She seized one and grasped a pen. 
 Her fingers had not recovered, nor could her 
 eyes see clearly; but despite wavering, blots, 
 and irregularities, the words yet stood out with 
 sufficient clearness: — 
 
 I apologize to Monsieur for offensive words 
 
 spoken at Madame Fleurissant's ball last night. I 
 beg him to believe that a moneyed debt is not a debt 
 of honor. Louise Duperre Montyon. 
 
The Drama of an Evening. 259 
 
 " Tudieti ! nothing to be done ! Goupilleau, 
 you are a fool ! You will see that something is 
 to be done. Here, supply the name and send it 
 to that — " and she called Monsieur Henri Ma- 
 ziel, in French, the name of a man who prepares 
 ambushes for assassination. "What's that?" 
 She jerked her head aside from a touch. It 
 was Marcelite gently replacing her bonnet, and ) 
 examining her face and head with professional 
 interest. 
 
 "Blessed Virgin!" she thought; "what a 
 genius her hairdresser must be ! " 
 
 " Here, my good woman," said the old lady, 
 when the bonnet was fastened and the lace veil 
 dropped, " give me your arm; conduct me 
 home immediately." 
 
 The notary read first one side of the paper, 
 then the other, scratched over with the hard 
 terms of some of old Arvil's extortions. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, looking around his office, ' 
 deserted now of all except the young German, 
 who was still trying to think of something to say, 
 something to do. 
 
 Bred in a classical school, Monsieur Gou- 
 pilleau was addicted to phrases that came epi- 
 
260 The Drama of an Evening. 
 
 grammatically. Shrugging his shoulders, his 
 eyes beamed with the intelligence that only legal 
 ~" experience can give, and with the satirical intel- 
 ligence which only such experience with women 
 inspires: " Ah, grattez la femme, et vons trou- 
 verez la mere! " 
 
MARRIAGE OF MARIE MODESTE. 
 
MARRIAGE OF MARIE MODESTE. 
 
 lARCfiLITE! but where is Marcelite? 
 Send Marcelite to the parlor," 
 called Madame Goupilleau to a 
 passing servant. " Continue, Sister, continue ; I 
 am listening." 
 
 And the low voice of the Sister of j Charity 
 poured forth such a tale of asylum necessities | 
 mingled with asylum gossip, that Madame Gou- 
 pilleau was carried away again into forgetfulness ' 
 of both Marcelite and the parlor. 
 
 " Is it possible ! I can hardly believe it ! " 
 The Sister had asked but for one moment in 
 the corridor, but she had underestimated the 
 length, and Madame Goupilleau the interest of 
 her budget. It sounded almost like a scandal in 
 the church, a deplorable thing of infinite interest 
 to all good Christians. Not until the volubly 
 
264 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 grateful itinerant disappeared with replenish- 
 ment of her asylum's particular lack and exhaus- 
 tion of its particular grievance, did duty recall 
 with painful jerk the chaperon to her charge. 
 t " Ah ! simpleton that I am ! and I have vowed 
 and vowed never to see those tiresome Sisters 
 V again." 
 
 She ran along the corridor to save what time 
 she could, her long skirts rustling after her, 
 holding her head with both hands and scold- 
 ing it well. Without stopping she entered 
 the parlor. Too late ! At the first glance she 
 saw that. 
 
 " Tante Eugenie ! " exclaimed Marie Modeste 
 with quavering breath, as if waking from a 
 dream. 
 
 " Madame ! " apostrophized Charles Montyon, 
 / hurrying forward to meet her. 
 I " Not a word ! I know it all ! It is my fault ! " 
 but she looked at them both reproachfully. 
 
 She had planned it otherwise, and far better, — 
 this scene, — with a minute particularity for de- 
 tail which only an outsider and a schemer in futu- 
 rity can command. The young man would come 
 to her first, of course, with his avowal, as eti- 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 265 
 
 quette prescribes. She would go to Marie her- 
 self, and delicately, as only a woman can, she 
 would draw aside the veil from the unconscious 
 heart and show the young girl the dormant 
 figure of her love there, — love whose existence 
 she did not dream of. 
 
 " My daughter," she would say. Ah ! she 
 had rehearsed the discourse too often to have 
 halted for a word. At any moment of the night 
 or day her tongue could have delivered it. 
 " My daughter ! " All that as a daughter she had 
 once craved to hear and been disappointed of, 
 and all that her exempt mother heart yearned 
 to utter, she would tell. For she had a mother's 
 heart, if by an error of Nature she had never 
 been a mother. 
 
 But the event always fools the prepared. 
 Now, she knew not what to say or do. She was 
 in fact embarrassed. It would have been better 
 to depend upon the inspiration of the moment. 
 She sank into an arm-chair and fanned herself 
 with a handkerchief which scented the air with 
 violet perfume. 
 
 " I beg a thousand pardons. I did not intend ; 
 I had no idea — " protested the young man. 
 
266 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 That was so ; when she was called away they 
 - were conversing about the climate of Paris. 
 
 " Tante Eugenie ! " was all that Marie could 
 murmur ; for the dream held her still, — a dream 
 out of which she could not awake. Her eyes 
 shone, touched with a new, bright light, and her 
 white face swam behind blushes, appearing and 
 disappearing like the moon behind thin clouds. 
 
 " She looks adorable, the little one," thought 
 ■' Madame. " If I could only have got hold of 
 Marcelite, I would have sent her to chaperon 
 \ them." 
 
 , It was not pleasant to think that the vigilance 
 which had guaranteed a whole institute of girls 
 should damage its record in these simple cir- 
 cumstances. A pest on Sisters and asylums ! 
 " Eh, Mignonne ! " She drew the girl to her 
 to look into those wonderfully brilliant eyes. 
 It was impossible ; the lids closed so quickly, 
 and the long black lashes fell so thick on the 
 cheeks, curling up at the ends as if singeing 
 from the hot blushes, that even burned Ma- 
 dame's lips pressed against them. The trouble- 
 some face finally hid itself among the laces on 
 her shoulder. 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 267 
 
 "Thou art sure? Very sure? No mistake? 
 Id ! Id ! " kissing her again. " After all, it is 
 what I expected. And you, Monsieur," to 
 Charles, who was standing close on the other 
 side of her chair, \" you have been indiscreet, 
 as indiscreet as possible. You should have 
 come to me first. You know that. Oh, no ! I 
 cannot pardon you, at least not immediately. 
 Have you spoken to Monsieur Goupilleau? " ! 
 
 " Madame, I intended — " 
 
 "What! Not even spoken to my husband? 
 But go downstairs this moment, this instant ! 
 He is in his office." 
 
 " I assure you it was unpremeditated — leav- 
 in g us a lone — " 
 
 "Ah! that is what I have always said; those 
 Sisters do no good, going around from house 
 to house — '17 
 
 She was fixed and inexorable ; would not 
 listen to him, would not even look at him, rest- 
 ing her head against the tall back of her chair, 
 directing her eyes into vacancy. 
 
 Behind her, discretion was again violated 
 and outraged. The hands of Marie and Charles 
 met of themselves, first accidentally and then 
 
268 Marriage of Mark Modest e. 
 
 purposely, and would not part. The eyes 
 which had so much to conceal from Madame 
 had for him abundant revelations, which the 
 lashes did not hide, from eyes that caused her 
 lids to rise merely by glances. Pier face came 
 out of the blushes, — a thin, white face in 
 an oval frame of plaited black hair, the lips 
 parted as if again in the tremor of caress ; — 
 Madame Goupilleau, with that big back to her 
 chair, might just as well have been in the corri- 
 dor again with the Sister. 
 
 " Tante Eugenie, I shall go with him. I, 
 I — " She had to go, for the hands absolutely 
 would not unclasp. 
 
 " My little girl is no more," thought Madame 
 Goupilleau as they left her alone. " Well ! 
 Ma bonne ! " to Marcelite, who came at last into 
 the room. " Your young lady is going to make 
 a fine marriage, — a fine marriage ! Tiens ! " in- 
 terrupting herself suddenly. " I wanted you ; 
 where were you? I called you to go into the 
 parlor to chaperon. Ah ! — I see now. You 
 were in connivance ! What innocence I have, 
 for my age ! " 
 
 " Madame ! " the quadroon's voice was apolo- 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 269 
 
 getic, but her eyes were triumphant. " Such a 
 good opportunity — ■ " 
 
 " At least, — at least, you did not send that 
 stupid Sister to me?" 
 
 "That! No, Madame! On my word of 
 honor." 
 
 " In truth, I believe you capable of anything. 
 What a rigmarole ! the Archbishop and some 
 Madame Houbi, or Hibou, and a priest of- 
 heaven knows where ! All the while ce beau 
 monsieur was on his knees to Mademoiselle. 
 It is old Madame Montyon, however, who will 
 have something to say," concluded Madame 
 Goupilleau in thought. " She will beat a tocsin 
 about our ears." / 
 
 Madame Montyon, as expected, from the 
 very first word of announcement resolutely ve- 
 toed any proposition of marriage between her 
 step-son, her prospective heir, and a dowerless 
 bride. When the young man came to her, the 
 old lady was sitting in her room in the twilight, 
 going over her accounts, which for conven- 
 ience and secrecy she carried in her head, — a 
 pleasant, wakeful occupation, adding dollar to 
 dollar; watching the pile of gold, the concrete 
 
270 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 presentment of her numerous investments, grow 
 in endless, ceaseless procreation. Her boudoir 
 was as bare and simple as a soldier's quarters. 
 There were no more effeminacies of culture or 
 religion about it than about herself. She had 
 asked no other assistance from Providence than 
 a neutral position as to her affairs, which she 
 managed as her father had his army, without 
 intermediation of saints or intermeddling of 
 priests. And no one could deny that her af- 
 fairs had paid her the compliment of prospering 
 under the regime. 
 
 " No, my son, no ! " she reiterated, varying the 
 formula not in the slightest degree. " Believe 
 me, I know better than you. j The young lady 
 will not suit at all. In the first place, she has 
 nothing." 
 
 " But, my mother — " 
 
 "In marriage there must be something; 
 money is tangible, money remains; money is 
 something, in fact — " 
 
 "Love?" he said, in a low voice, for it was 
 novel to him, and he had yet to learn not to 
 be shy of it. 
 
 "Love! Love! That for_lov-e-. L " snapping 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 271 
 
 her fingers, which shexoufd do with masculine 
 effect. 
 
 And love was his theme, his inspiration, his 
 reason ; and love was her only dower ! BiiLit 
 was like talking of God to an unbeliever. 
 
 " Be reasonable ; listen to me ! On my word 
 of honor, as a woman who was not born yester- 
 day, and who has not lived. with her eyes shut, 
 this crisis is temporary, momentary. She is not 
 the only young woman in the world ! cnfin, I 
 guarantee," raising her voice and her finger 
 impressively, — "I guarantee that you will meet 
 at least, at least, one woman a year during the 
 next ten years of your life whom you will love 
 enough to make your wife. Ten women ! Ten 
 wives ! Mon Dieu ! and I am putting it low. 
 No ! I can never consent." 
 
 The rebellious retorts, the marplot of their 
 domestic intercourse, which always rose in his 
 heart at the sound of her voice, crowded to his 
 tongue now, but he had no temper to utter them. 
 
 " Love, my dear, it passes like everything, — 
 only a little quicker." He was standing. She, 
 did not raise her head to him. She was speak- 
 ing not to him alone, but all men. " Mon Dieu 1 
 
272 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 This one will go like 'Good-morning'! " She 
 kissed the tips of her fingers. " In point of 
 fact, if you should marry Mademoiselle Motte 
 now, and she should die, you would marry 
 again in two years. Ah ! don't jump so ; don't 
 exclaim at me that way. It is not my fault. I 
 did not create men," — shrugging her shoulders. 
 : " After all, it is only Nature ; and Nature is an- 
 
 other name for a strong, ugly animal." 
 
 How could she feel so ! How could she talk 
 so ! He looked at her sitting below him, and 
 for the first time tried to divest her of age, 
 ugliness, and cynicism. She had been young 
 once like Marie Modeste. Had she ever lifted 
 her eyes to a man as Marie did, praying, yet 
 dreading, his love? Had her warm hands ever 
 got cold and trembled in the hand of another, 
 as Marie's did? Had her slim form for one 
 instant been in the arm of another — could first 
 love ever be forgotten? Or was there one hu- 
 man being in the world whom this great ocean 
 had not once enfolded, engulfed, drawn down, 
 drowned beyond recollection, (beyond compre- 
 hension of past, present, future, self, interest, 
 money ?_} 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 273 
 
 " And you think, you think — And women," 
 changing the question, "can they not love? 
 This young girl, Marie, she loves me, she has 
 told me so." He laid his hand on her shoulder 
 to accentuate his whisper. __ 
 
 The old lady's husband had married her for 
 money, and had widowed her contemptuously 
 during his life. She answered truthfully. 
 
 " If she loves you, all I have to say is that 
 she will not be more disappointed now if you 
 do not marry her, than some day if you do." 
 His hand fell from her shoulder; he turned 
 away. So old ! So gray-haired, — and the widow 
 of his own father ! He had not a word to 
 say. His dreams and fantasies were frightened 
 away. How the young are tied and_ hobbled ! 
 their most innocent^ plans twisted, turned, 
 thwarted by the skeleton hand of a dead father, 
 or mother, or grandparent, holding a careful 
 entail of unhappiness and disgrace. And there 
 is no relief from the heritage ! Flash after 
 flash, illumination came in his brain along the 
 dark spots of his ignorances, — spots in his 
 father's and mother's life which thought had 
 glided over before, which his manhood had 
 
 18 
 
 <_ 
 
y 
 
 274 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 respected ; and the moment divulged connubial 
 secrets, preserved so far by the miracle which 
 preserves the simplicity of the young in a se- 
 cretless, mystery-less world ! 
 
 " I assure you, my son," his step-mother 
 changed her voice briskly at the super-impor- 
 tance of her own business, " I am exceedingly 
 pleased at the results of the Arvil succession. 
 It is very good I came to attend to it myself. 
 When we return to France — " 
 
 " Return to France? " 
 
 " I said, when w e return to France. Then 
 you will see the difference. You shall be in- 
 stalled en prince. Your separate establish- 
 ment, your — " she checked off finger by fin- 
 ger her intentions for his pleasure and comfort. 
 " Then you can talk of marriage, then you can 
 select, then you will be a parti, and you can 
 marry a partie." 
 
 " And Mademoiselle Motte? " 
 
 "Eh! Will you never be convinced? ' frown- 
 ing angrily. " Is Mademoiselle Motte a partie? 
 Has she a jiolf__H^s. she^ even a family? The 
 foundling of a negro woman ! " 
 
 " No ! No ! " Her own voice could not have 
 
Marriage of Marie Mod est e. 275 
 
 been louder nor more authoritative. He came 
 around and stood close in front of her chair. 
 Without thinking, — for his heart gave him no 
 time, — he spoke, soon changing his tone and his 
 words, for his audience changed, — the old 
 woman and the chair fading away, and the 
 young girl appearing, standing before him as 
 she did this morning, transforming his defence 
 into a tribute. It was dark in the room, or his 
 face would have betrayed the vision. In the 
 early, powerful moments of first love the real 
 presence is carried around everywhere, and the 
 sacrament of communion is celebrated by the 
 heart, in any place, at any moment. 
 
 " Listen ! Let me tell you, once for all. A 
 war had broken_OY?^ ner country. Her father 
 was killed in the first engagement. Her mother \ 
 died as soon as the news reached her, — shot in 
 fact and in truth by the same bullet. But one 
 life was spared, a weak, wretched, frail infant, 
 as if by a curse, — a girl to live and grow and 
 develop in a detached condition. Her_ nurse, 
 one of the very slaves_ab.out whom the war was 
 being fought, aided the flight of the panic- 
 stricken wife from her home on the approach 
 
276 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 of a noisy, victorious enemy, and received into 
 her arms the child which was born an orphan. 
 Orphanage, my mother, is what a child never 
 outgrows ; it is what God himself cannot rem- 
 edy." His voice took intonations unknown be- 
 fore to him. " The nurse, a slave no longer, 
 since she had flown with the infant to this city 
 in the possession of the emancipationists, took 
 the child to herself and nursed it, — n ursed it 
 as the Virgin Mary must have nursed her 
 Heaven-sent babe; nursed it on her knees, in 
 abnegation, in adoration ; lodging it in her room. 
 which became, not a room, but a sanctuary; 
 'couching it in her own bed, which became an 
 altar; feeding it, tending it, as imagination can 
 conceive a p assio nate heart jn a black skin 
 tending a white child under the ghostly super- 
 vision of dead parents. When the child grew 
 to intelligence of its surroundings, when memory 
 began, day by day, to weave together frail bits 
 of history, then a fiction arose as if by incanta- 
 t ion out of the r ude,, ignorant, determined mind 
 of the nurse. She placed the child at a school, 
 that the child's memory could not antedate. 
 She gave the child a responsible white guardian, 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 277 
 
 which the child's knowledge could not contra- 
 dict. She took her forever out of the homely 
 surroundings which love had made sumptuous 
 and self-sacrifice holy, but which would even t- 
 ually prove s ocia l ostracism. To maintain this 
 fiction, patience, money, time were needed. 
 Patience? Did a woman ever need patience 
 for a child? Was money ever lacking, from 
 an inferior to a superior? Timev— - the good 
 God__gi ves the s ame ti me to th e slave as the 
 free, t he b lack as the white, the ignorant as 
 t he wise , the_weak as the strong. Patience fed 
 the fiction, anticipated doubts, allayed suspi- 
 cions. Money came in quantities sufficient to' 
 form not a shield, but a pedestal; and time 
 took the little girl and led her onward and 
 onward through an education, and through the 
 experience which brings the necessary ingre- 
 dients to the formation of a woman's heart. 
 Time protected the fiction to the last moment; 
 but — the last moment came. The basis of the 
 young girl's life was suddenly withdrawn, and 
 truth came, in the fall to the earth. With t he 
 t ruth _cajrie 1 __hoj\ T ever, the substance of what 
 fiction had supposed. To the nurse_came two 
 
278 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 willing associates. To the young g irl, bereaved 
 by the fiction almost as cruelly as she had 
 been by the war, came parents, — volunteer 
 parents. Ah ! who could see her and refrain 
 from loving her? " He stopped breathless. 
 
 " He raves," thought the old lady, " like De 
 Musset ! But she did not answer, —[-perhaps some 
 hitherto unperceived merits in God's creation of 
 men coming before her mental vision. I She was 
 only what experience had made her; her theo- 
 ries, like most women's theories, came from the 
 heart, not the brain, and she had no imagination 
 to beautify or make them palatable. 
 
 Love is a noxious grass for growth. One 
 rootlet planted in the heart, and two beings are 
 soon so tied, tangled, and knotted together by 
 the miraculous reduplication of perhaps a single 
 look, sigh, form of face, glance of the eye, 
 that there is nothing for it but marriage, with 
 the shortest possible engagement, to get the 
 trousseau ready in; 'the Creoles, wisely or not, 
 prefering to apply the test of fidelity to hus- 
 band rather than lover. I 
 
 This was in winter. The spring approached, 
 each day an incendiary to the heart, and all 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 279 
 
 hymeneal. No one grows reasonable with the 
 spring. The old lady felt the occult influences 
 against her, and resented them, — the birds 
 aggressively lusty, the sky bringing the roses 
 out until the bushes threatened premature ex- 
 haustion from wanton prodigality in blooming, 
 the moon acting like a venal Voudou charm. In 
 a community where none but dowerless brides 
 are born, love easily discounts money ; and 
 money was_her only capital. She was left more 
 and more {in a helpless minority, fighting hard 
 to maintain the solidarity of her resolution and 
 fortune ; daily reaffirming the one and intrench- 
 ing the other by testament and codicil behind 
 a bulwark of papers proof against the assaults 
 of present generations, and unborn ones to the 
 third and fourth degree. \ 
 
 The contract of marriage, her consolation 
 now, was to be her substitute when she was 
 gone, an unanswerable rebuke, a certificate of 
 consent but not approval, a notarial monument ) 
 to the wealth and generosity of the step-mother, . 
 the foolishness of the groom, and to all per- 
 petuity a confession of poverty by the bride. It 
 is hard to be rich, and a mother at the same time ; 
 
28o Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 but the old lady undertook the task. And while 
 the young people were learning the necessary 
 indispensable vocabulary of endearment for fu- 
 ture intimacy, she applied herself to drawing 
 with equal security the strings about her heart 
 and the strings about her purse. 
 
 June brought the wedding day; for June 
 brings more wedding days in New Orleans than 
 any other month of the year. June by the 
 calendar, and accredited for the forward month 
 with hot suns and light showers, had peeped in 
 upon every moon since December, confusing all 
 meteorological rules, befooling the silly weeds 
 as usual, and by unseasonable enticement into 
 blossoming, losing the fruit-trees their crops. 
 
 In the forenoon hours, with their compliments 
 and presents, came the bridesmaids, — all in one 
 body, contagious with emotion ; exclamatory, 
 effusive, vibrating from the verge of tears to the 
 verge of laughter. 
 
 " Ah, Marie ! " 
 
 " Ah, chere !" 
 
 "At last! " 
 
 " Your wedding day ! " 
 
 " You are well, che'rie?" 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 281 
 
 " You are not frightened? " 
 
 " You do not tremble the least, — the least in 
 the world? " 
 
 " Let me feel your heart! " 
 
 " It would paralyze me ! " 
 
 " Such a beautiful day ! " 
 
 " A little warm ! " 
 
 An unconfessed but patent awe of her held 
 them aloof. They stood together in a group, 
 from which their sentences issued spasmodically 
 in bunches. They had been schoolmates from 
 their a, b, c class, — most of them ; so had the 
 mothers and grandmothers of some of them. 
 Since short dresses and socks, mindful of their 
 destiny, they had promised to be bridesmaids 
 one to another. Or, death supervening, por- 
 teuscs : to walk in white toilettes and white 
 veils at the head of the burial procession, as 
 this evening they intended to do at the bridal. 
 An office so conspicuously desirable, this last, 
 that it was made the subject of barter and 
 bond ; a matter of written and sealed docu- 
 ments, hidden in secret corners of their desks, 
 — the most precious archives of their school 
 life, though fluctuating annals of its friendships. 
 
282 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 Bride or corpse, how remote Marie Modeste 
 was already on that road which they could 
 travel as yet only in imagination. She was 
 changing already. Taking the cue from their 
 relative positions, they spoke disparagingly of 
 themselves, meanly of their offerings, in de- 
 spondent voices : — 
 
 " Nothing but a souvenir from your old 
 Fifine." 
 
 " You won't forget the dunce of your class 
 when you look at this, cJih'e? " 
 
 " This has no value, Marie, but sentiment." 
 
 "Promise not to open this until I leave; it's 
 a horror." 
 
 " You won't mind wearing this for my sake, 
 Marie, you are so amiable." 
 
 " Cherie, hang this somewhere out of sight, 
 but keep your faithful Louise in mind." 
 
 "I made this myself, for you; that's the 
 reason it 's so ugly." 
 
 " A little porte-bonJicur for your new life." 
 
 " A little vide-pocJie for your toilette." 
 
 " A cushion for your pi'ie-Dieu; I implore you 
 do not look at the stitches ! " 
 
 " You will not forget us, Marie? " 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 283 
 
 " You will always be the same to us, Marie? " 
 
 " We did n't learn our a, b, c together for 
 nothing, did we, Marie? " 
 
 " And we did n't miss our cosmography to- 
 gether for nothing, did we, Marie? " 
 
 " Do you remember, Marie, when — " 
 
 "Or that day—" 
 
 They were actually beginning to have a past 
 to talk about, like their mamans ! 
 
 " Mon Dicu ! how long ago that is; it seems 
 like another life." 
 
 " Just about a year ! " 
 
 " And Marig the first one married ! " 
 
 " But you are engaged, Fifine ! " they all 
 cried. Fifine as usual persisted in a denial, 
 absurd in the face of evidence. 
 
 " Well, Marie, I give it to you with all 
 my heart." (Meaning the honor.) And they 
 all kissed her again to affirm the sentiment 
 unanimously. " Ah, you are very fortunate ! " 
 
 " And he is so handsome, c/iere." 
 
 " And distingue" 
 
 " And such good family." 
 
 " Oh, he has everything, — everything." 
 
 " Was it a Novena, Marie? " 
 
284 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 " Or our Lady of Lourdes ? " 
 
 " Saint Roch? " 
 
 " Saint Roch ! bah ! He is old." 
 
 " Ma chbre, they tell me there is a place 
 down town, way down town, where you can 
 obtain anything, — absolutely anything." 
 
 " If it had not been for that pretty toilette at 
 Madame Fleurissant's ball ! " 
 
 " That was the first time you saw him, hein, 
 Marie ! " 
 
 " Mon Dicu ! " in chorus at her assent. 
 
 " I told maman my dress was hideous there." 
 
 " Three months ago ! You kept your secret 
 well, Marie." 
 
 " As for me, I would announce the first 
 week." 
 
 " Like old Maman Birotteau ; one hour after- 
 wards, — one hour, that 's positive, — she was in 
 the street announcing Adelaide's engagement." 
 
 " To cut off retreat from the gentleman." 
 
 " Poor Auguste ! " 
 
 " I will never get married, I 'm sure." 
 
 " Nor I either; I never had any luck." 
 
 " If I do not get married, I do not want to 
 live." 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 285 
 
 " Nor I, cherie, candidly." 
 
 " Not to get married, is to confess one's self 
 simply a — a Gorgon." 
 
 "But it's a woman's vocation! What must 
 she do else? " 
 
 " There is always the convent." 
 
 " The convent ! bah ! The convent does n't 
 fool any one." 
 
 " Non, merci ! No convent for me ! 
 
 " I would rather comb Saint Catharine." 
 
 " Like Tante Pauline? " 
 
 "And tangle the whole town with your 
 tongue? " 
 
 " My maman was married at sixteen." 
 
 " And my grandmaman at fourteen." 
 
 " Ah, but times were different then ! " 
 
 " Women had more chance." 
 
 " And men less egotism." 
 
 " Frankly, I find men insipid." 
 
 This was too obvious an insincerity to be 
 taken seriously; even the bride laughed. 
 
 " But we must not stay all day ! " 
 
 " Yes, cherie, we must leave you." 
 
 "Adieu!" 
 
 " An re voir ! " 
 
286 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 " Courage ! " 
 
 " We will pray for you ! " 
 
 They closed the door and went down the 
 stairs to the corridor. 
 
 " But, you know, she is a brunette, and he is 
 a brun." 
 
 " He should have been blond." 
 
 " Brown and brown, that is bad." 
 
 " Every one ought to marry her opposite." 
 
 " I adore blondes ; they look so cold." 
 
 " No, according to me ; dark eyes and light 
 hair." 
 
 " Blue eyes and black hair, — that is my type." 
 
 " And tall, tall, tall." 
 
 " Oh, I hope the good God will send me a 
 fiance ! " 
 
 " Dis-dojic, Loulou, you are not engaged, — 
 true? true? " 
 
 " No, unfortunately ! No such good luck." 
 •j " No matter; the whole town says so." 
 
 " Ouf ! how dark the parlors look ! " 
 
 " They sign the contract of marriage at three 
 o'clock." 
 
 " I hear the old Madame Montyon gives 
 handsomely." 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 287 
 
 " On the contrary, I heard, not a cent." 
 " But what will Charles do for a living? " 
 " Work, like other men." I 
 
 " A Parisian work? " Loulou mimicked his 
 Parisian accent. 
 
 " He is not_a Parisian, he only affects it; he <c 
 
 is a Cr eole like all of us." 
 " And she has nothing." 
 
 " Not a cent. If old Monsieur Motte had 
 lived, it would have been different." Referring 
 to their school traditions of his wealth. 
 
 Vestiges of winter were still lurking in the 
 damp, stone-paved corridor, chilling them a 
 little before they got into the bright street, 
 where a summer sun shone all the year round. 
 The chill remained slightly in their hearts as 
 they walked away, for beauty and youth were 
 the only dower of most of them, and both 
 were fragile ; one year already had passed over 
 their maturity, and patience is not a Creole 
 virtue. Their aspirations being neither high 
 ncr many, disappointment need only come in 
 one form, to be effectual. 
 
 The young girl who was so soon to be a bride 
 sat alone in her room, in the isolation of retreat 
 
288 Marriage of Marie Modeste. 
 
 which custom recognizes as salutary if not 
 needful, — alone, yet not entirely alone, for she 
 had the spiritual companionship which comes 
 in the solemn moments of life to the pure in 
 heart, and permits them while on earth to feel 
 if not to see God. A week ago she had passed 
 her eighteenth birthday. Only eighteen anni- 
 versaries since her birth ! It was little to form 
 a separation from then and now. Looking 
 back, she saw them rising, her birthdays, an 
 ascending plane of mental and physical growth, 
 until they culminated three months ago. That 
 date had changed her : she was a woman now. 
 / Over her face had fallen the dignity which over 
 faces of her type falls without crepuscular inter- 
 lude, severing them from childhood as from a 
 day that is past. Her dreaming eyes, wakened 
 to look on life itself, not illusions fed by the im- 
 agination, were beginning to fill with women's 
 wares, all on top and exposed, as good women's 
 wares are, for the world to see. The inchoate 
 sentiments that had held the mouth in vacilla- 
 tion were gone ; the lips that had said " I love," 
 had found their character and expression. But 
 the body was still in arrears, still hesitating 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 289 
 
 over the sure profit of a change, receiving yet 
 from the long, thin, white gown the curves and 
 mouldings it should have contributed. 
 
 She walked across the room to where the 
 usual pictures of devotion hung on the walls. 
 They had answered their purpose in her life, 
 and were beginning to be useless. Her religion 
 was no longer to be fed by symbols, but to 
 produce them. But as she looked at them, 
 holding in her hand the little worn prayer-book 
 that had once belonged to her mother, they 
 helped her to span the interval that separated 
 her from her dead parents, — those absent guests 
 represented only by proxies at all the feasts of 
 her life. Her mother had once stood this way 
 in bridal dress, waiting for him who was to 
 become her husband and Marie's father. The 
 virgins and sainted women from across the 
 centuries made the thought plain to her, of 
 the immensity of eternity and woman's voca- 
 tion in it. Her heart throbbed and expanded 
 under her novitiate's dress; she soared higher 
 and higher in spirit; she touched immortality 
 in vision. She felt the protecting hand of God, 
 — God, the Father, who had carried her, an 
 
290 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 infant, through bloodshed, revolution, and dis- 
 aster ; had given her a nurse — mother, friends ; 
 had brought a heart for her heart from a dis- 
 tance, from the unknown, across an ocean ! He 
 had deprived her in youth, and saved the hoard- 
 ings for a dower of love on her wedding day ! 
 She hid her face in her hands, to tell Him her 
 love and gratitude. 
 
 Young girls who come into a v/orld already 
 prepared for them, from their layette to their 
 trousseau, on their marriage day sit and think 
 about the wedding banquet preparing for them, 
 the costly presents, the beautiful dress, the new- 
 fashioned wreath, — not of orange-flowers, but 
 of blossoms more appropriate to the virgin- 
 ity of the rich, — what they will do after mar- 
 riage, and what after that, sending their thoughts 
 along blushing paths maybe too surely blazed 
 by secret gossip or contraband literature. They 
 do not feel their destiny like the young girls 
 who are led along by God Himself, — patiently 
 waiting in seclusion, poverty, and affliction the 
 appointed seasons for knowledge, hearing in 
 silences and darknesses divine notifications, re- 
 ceiving understanding with the intimations of 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 291 
 
 futurity; the young girls whom He reserves 
 for the good of the human race, to mother a 
 Saviour, or transform the seed of a ploughman 
 into the soul of a hero. 
 
 Marcelite entered the room and stood silently 
 waiting, looking, thinking how best to carry out 
 her intentions. " Mamzelle_JV[&Ei€-!— — She did 
 not speak as the authoritative nurse to her 
 charge ; she was the humble servant of a future 
 madame. 
 
 " Oh, Marcelite ! the thoughts, — the thoughts 
 one has ! " It was so good to lay her head once 
 more on the shoulder that had cradled her, a 
 baby! so good to feel that soft, dark hand 
 •caressing her as it had caressed her all through 
 life ! For a moment she had felt strange and 
 lonely in this glimpse of the new, foreign future. 
 "Marcelite, do you know what it is to love? 
 When I think of it, you know, ma bonne, I am 
 glad_t hat m y_^=JJial __Monsieur Motte did not 
 live." How happy she must have been to pro- 
 nounce that name again ! "I wanted to die at 
 first, I wanted it to kill me; but it is all gone, — 
 that feeling," laying her hand on her heart and 
 making gratuitous confession. "Think; if he had 
 
292 Marriage of Marie Modeste. 
 
 lived, it jxtight-alLhave been different. I might 
 not have met Charles ; and all this love I give 
 him, and all the love he gives me, — what is the 
 love of an uncle in comparison? God was right 
 to manage it that way, — to send you to manage 
 it for Him. And, Marcelite, all the time J[ was 
 studying, I thought it was for my uncle ; but I 
 see now it was for Charles. Everything I did 
 was for him. T. believe I was born just to 
 marry him. I am frightened now, when I think 
 I might have died without it. It is grand to 
 be a woman. Oh, I feel like a woman now;\ I 
 know what it is to be a woman. God has told 
 me everything." The low voice hardly carried 
 the words to the nurse's ear, but her breath fell 
 like the sweetest caresses on the dark skin. 
 
 " Bebe 7 Bebe ! '" was all the woman could 
 say. Her own marriage in the far-off days of 
 slavery, — what a thing it had been, not to be 
 mentioned, not to be thought of, before her 
 white child bride ! 
 
 " Marcelite, do you think he loves me as 
 much as I love him?" A question of supreme 
 importance, requiring a long, rambling, but 
 never-endinsr answer. 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 293 
 
 " Because, Marcelite, what do you do in 
 life when the one you love does not love 
 you?" . -> 
 
 Although no one in th^_c^ J j- : ^_cit]/ of in- 
 trigue, — knew better than the hairdresser, she^ 
 had nothing to say. 
 
 " Marcelite, did my maman look like me as a 
 bride? And my papa, was he like Charles? " 
 
 " Be'bc, Zozo!" Could human beings ever 
 unite the beauties and excellences she de- 
 scribed, or eloquence stray farther beyond the 
 boundaries of truth? 
 
 " Their pictures hang on the walls of the 
 house, there on the plantation; their books, 
 their furniture — " 
 
 Pictures of what had been a pictureless ideal 
 to her ! Her orphan presentment of parents 
 was no better than the blind one's presentment 
 of sight. 
 
 " One of these days, Marcelite, you and I, 
 we will slip away from home — oh, Charles 
 shall not prevent me ! " she blushed and smiled ; 
 she had never smiled that way before she met 
 him. " We will travel to that plantation ; we 
 will walk through^ the fields, slowly, easily; we 
 
294 Marriage of Marie Modeste. 
 
 will come to the gardens ; we will go through 
 them slowly, easily; you will be my guide ; we 
 will creep to the house, slowly, easily; we will 
 peep through the shutters, and quick ! quick ! 
 you will point out the place where those pic- 
 tures are. Heaven ! if I do not die in that 
 moment, I will tear open the doors, I will rush 
 in ! If there should be dogs about ! I hope 
 there will be no dogs — " 
 
 She stopped suddenly. As if it were true, — all 
 * — 
 this ! [As if the nurse would not destroy a world 
 
 to please her, or fabricate one to delude her 
 
 into security ! She knew the woman, and the 
 
 extravagances of her heart. / Almost, almost 
 
 ' she felt as if she could give up her bridegroom 
 
 that it might be true, Marcelite's story, — her 
 
 bridegroom, and all the love that dazzled 
 
 around her future like an aureole. She forced 
 
 herself away from the thought. 
 
 " But what a toilette ! What elegance ! I 
 
 never saw you so fine in my life before ! No, 
 
 stand still ! Let me look at you ! " She walked 
 
 round and round the nurse. In truth, calico 
 
 skirts could not stand out more stiffly, nor a 
 
 bandanna be tied into more bows and knots. 
 
Marriage of Marie MoJeste. 295 
 
 Simply to look at the new silk apron made 
 it rustle. 
 
 " What is that you have in your hand? For 
 me? " 
 
 " Bebe, you will hide it in your drawer. You 
 will not look at it, — not yet. To-morrow, next 
 day." 
 
 " Par exemple, I am not to look at anything 
 to-day, it seems! Well, you for one, — you 
 reckon without my curiosity." 
 
 She laughed as she snatched a package out 
 of the nurse's hands. She had never laughed 
 so easily, so merrily in her life. It was like 
 the laugh of her old school companions, and 
 sounded novel and charming in her own ears. 
 
 " Fifine, Loulou, Tetelle, all said the same 
 thing. It is too absurd ! " 
 
 " Zozo ! To-morrow or next day." 
 
 " Bah ! I am going to do as I please. I am 
 going to open this. I am going to open them 
 all, right now. You need not think I do not 
 know what it is ! It is my present, — my wedding 
 present from you. And I have been expecting 
 it all day, and I knew you were going to keep 
 it till the last minute ! La ! Madame Marcelite 
 
. 
 
 296 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 always takes her time ! Madame Marcelite 
 must always produce her effect ! Ah, I know 
 you, you ogre ! " And she stopped again to 
 pass her hands affectionately over the nurse's 
 shoulders, which stood out like feather pillows. 
 
 " Now we will see what it is. A box, a work- 
 box, a beautiful ne'cessaire . Thimble, see ! it 
 fits. Needles, scissors, thread, — evidently I 
 am to do my own sewing in future. No 
 more Marcelite to darn, no more Marcelite to 
 mend. And another compartment underneath ! 
 A— h ! " 
 
 The little compartment underneath was filled 
 with g^5ld_dqllajs. At first one would have 
 thought it jewelry. The nurse started more 
 violently at the discovery than the young lady. 
 
 " It is what I have saved for you, Bebe ! — for 
 your wedding day, — ever since you were born, 
 ever since your maman gave you to me." 
 
 Looking at the face before her, Marcelite 
 tested another argument. 
 
 For a year she had not ventured to offer her 
 earnings. She had uncomplainingly borne that 
 the Goupilleaus should supplant her, the sole 
 provider heretofore, but now — 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 297 
 
 " It was your own time, Bcbe ; I belonged 
 to you : you have a right to it. Who made 
 me your slave? God. Who made me free, 
 he in? " 
 
 The girl looked stolidly, mechanically, at the 
 box in her hand. 
 
 It seemed impossible for the quadroon's voice 
 to become more humble, more pleading; but 
 the words that followed proved that it could. 
 
 " Zozo ! You don't mind taking it from me, 
 from your Marcelite, your nurse, your own 
 negro. No one will ever know it ! I swear 
 before God, no one will ever know it ! Be'be, 
 you must have a little money, just for yourself, 
 — when you get married you don't know. You 
 see, Bebe, they are strangers, they are not us, 
 thev_are not Marcelite, they are not you. I 
 could have bought you something ; but I wanted 
 you to have some money, some picayunes of 
 your own." 
 
 It was hard to understand that the softness 
 of her breath, the strength of her arms, the 
 activity of her feet, thediained_ jreedom of her 
 whole life, could be accepted without dishonor, 
 and not the money value in coin ; hard for the; 
 
298 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 girl to understand it, too. Her past life of un- 
 conscious dependence rose before her, humili- 
 ating, degrading her. Tears of mortification 
 came into her eyes; the bright, beautiful clay 
 was tarnished. 
 
 " Only for the first few days, Bebe ; after that, 
 you won't mind taking their money. Oh, it 
 will all be different after you are married, when 
 you are his wife. What use have I got for it? 
 I 've got no parents ; I 've got no children, only 
 you ! They must n't say you came to them 
 without a picayune ; with only your clothes in 
 a bundle, like a poor unknown ! Whom must 
 I give it to, if not to you? To negroes? You 
 think I am going to work for negroes, eh ! " 
 
 There was something else in marriage than 
 love? There were distinctions. 1 She had no 
 money ; that made a difference ! She was to 
 take this, acquiesce in what conscience, tradi- 
 tion forbade, receive money from a negro wo- 
 man rather than her husband. For the first 
 few days — they, the Montyons, were rich; she 
 was poor. 
 
 Gauging effect on the face of Marie, Mar- 
 celite saw that she was misunderstood, felt that 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 
 
 299 
 
 she had blundered. She had come to the end 
 of her argument with her cause lost. 
 
 "You won't take it! You are going to re-~- 
 fuse it ! You despise it ! You would rather 
 go to the Montyons for money than take it 
 from me ! I know, I know, it^s because I 
 am black, it 's because I am a negro ! " She 
 closed her eyes over the tears, and her mouth 
 over the sobs that shook inside her huge frame. 
 It had escaped her, — the first confession of the 
 galling drop in her heart. Gay, iusotfciante, 
 impudent^ she had worn her color like a trav- 
 esty. Who would have suspected her? 
 
 " Marcelite ! Marcelite ! You must not talk 
 that way ! See, I take it, I take it thankfully ! 
 Have I not taken everything from you? You 
 do me injustice. How can you reproach me?" 
 
 But it came too late to appease. The woman 
 shook her head, flinging the tears savagely from 
 her eyes. 
 
 " No ! No ! Throw it away ! Pitch it out 
 of the window ! They have money, — the Mon- 
 tyons have plenty of money. Everything I do 
 goes wrong; no one helps me. Even God will 
 not help a negro ! " 
 
 < 
 
300 Marriage of Marie Modeste. 
 
 There was a rustling of skirts in the hall out- 
 side, a tap at the door. 
 
 " Tante Eugenie!" exclaimed the girl, joy- 
 fully. " I shall show it to her ! She will see 
 it ! She will thank you too ! " She bounded 
 forward with the open box. 
 
 " Let her know you take money from me ! 
 Non ! Non ! " The situation was reversed. 
 With an adroit movement of the hand the 
 quadroon possessed herself of the box and hid 
 it from Madame Goupilleau, effacing magically 
 all trace of emotion except in her eyes, in whose 
 depths feeling seemed to surge and roll like the 
 billows of the sea after the storm has passed. 
 
 " It is time, mignonne ! Come ! They are 
 going to sign the contract now. Oh, you will 
 understand all about it when you hear it ! It is 
 long, and, ma foi ! perfectly incomprehensible. 
 It is in my head in such confusion ! Marcelite, 
 my good woman, go downstairs to the office, 
 and ask the young gentlemen who are to serve 
 as witnesses to have the kindness to ascend 
 to the parlor." 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau, the notary, was clos- 
 eted in his private office with Mr. Morris Frank. 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 301 
 
 They had been together the entire morning in 
 an interview which was the resume of a month's 
 correspondence and a week's personal inter- 
 course. The notary, glancing at his watch be- 
 tween sentences, saw that economy of words 
 must be practised to conclude within the ap- 
 pointed time ; his face was grave at the reflec- 
 tion of his miscalculation ; perhaps a day or 
 two more would have saved him the disappoint- 
 ment of his scheme and still rendered feasible 
 his coup de tkedtre, as he called it to himself. 
 
 The young German's face was grave also, 
 graver than the notary's. It wa^ a summary 
 proceeding, — this thrusting not only a planta- j 
 tion in the balance, but, gently as the notary 
 put it, a father's reputation also. If his father 
 had only lived one year longer to answer and 
 act in his own defence ! In embarrassment of 
 manner and words the young man had repeated 
 over and over again : — ■ 
 
 " Monsieur, I assure you, you do not know \ 
 my father. He never made a mistake in his 
 life." 
 
 The notary whose profession was officially 
 to prevent the depredations of friends and 
 
302 Marriage of Marie Modeste. 
 
 relations upon one another, replied less as a 
 notary than as a Frenchman, — 
 
 " Monsieur, a father never makes mistakes 
 to a son such as you are." 
 
 It was a cruel predicament. The notary held 
 a letter in his hand ; continually referring to it 
 with his eyes, he continually forbore reading 
 it aloud. 
 
 " To acknowledge what you wish, criminates 
 my father." 
 
 " Restitution is all that could vindicate him." 
 
 "There must be some law, some — " 
 
 " She is a young girl, an orphan ; you a 
 man, strong — " 
 
 A desperate last hope, and the swiftly-passing 
 time, impelled the notary to seek this adjunct 
 to his legal argument. 
 
 "A donation?" The young man asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 "No, sir," — Monseiur Goupilleau drew him- 
 self up haughtily, — " restitution." 
 
 Armed with decision, Monsieur Goupilleau 
 began to read the letter in his hand, fixing 
 his eyes resolutely on the paper and throwing 
 his voice into the official tone of indifference 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 303 
 
 to human interests, sentiments, and affections 
 which is the mode of conveyance of notarial 
 communications. 
 
 " You ask me — " 
 
 " You have already consulted a lawyer ! I 
 thought it was understood between us — " 
 
 " I have sought legal advice in a supposititious 
 case, from an unquestioned authority," giving 
 the source. " As you will see, no names have 
 been mentioned." Proceeding with the letter, 
 " ' You ask me, Would it be possible, the 
 owners of a plantation dying, both husband 
 and wife, the first year of the war, and the nurse 
 running away with the only heir, an infant, that 
 the overseer of the plantation could obtain pos- 
 session of the property and retain it, unmo- 
 lested, unquestioned, for seventeen years? I 
 answer, he could, by chicanery and rascality — ' "' 
 
 " Sir! Sir! " The young man rose excitedly 
 from his seat. 
 
 " ' If he knew the child was alive. Sup- 
 pose at >the commencement of the war the 
 owners of the plantation were in debt to the 
 overseer, say for wages, the salary of a year or 
 more. Overseers often preferred letting their 
 
304 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 salaries accumulate before drawing them. The 
 husband enlists, leaving the plantation in charge 
 of the overseer, — a most natural arrangement. 
 You say he is killed, the wife dies, the nurse 
 disappears with the baby. New Orleans was 
 captured in 1862. A United States District 
 Court was established, having jurisdiction of the 
 captured territory below the mouth of the Red 
 River. Now the overseer, by going down to the 
 city, if the plantation was in this territory,' — 
 the Parish of St. James, as you are aware, Mon- 
 sieur Frank, is within it, — ' by going down to 
 the city and giving information that the owner 
 of the plantation was a rebel, an officer in 
 the army, concealing the fact that he was 
 dead — ' " 
 
 "Monsieur! I cannot! I refuse to listen! " 
 Morris Frank's face was red with anger, his eyes 
 moist with feeling. 
 
 The notary continued, slightly hurrying his 
 words: L" .' Could have the property seized, con- 
 demned as the property of a rebel, purchase it 
 himself at the confiscation sale, paying a nom- 
 inal price, say five thousand dollars, for it, 
 which five thousand he would not pay in cash, 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 305 
 
 but claim as a privileged debt the amount 
 actually due, and make up the balance of the 
 price by charges for overseeing, up to the date 
 of proceedings. He could thus hold the plan- 
 tation under an apparently legal title. No one 
 but a child could contest.' " J 
 
 " And the young lady? " 
 
 The notary's time was up. He was overdue 
 upstairs with the contract. 
 
 " That point, I thought, was settled yester- 
 day," said he, curtly. " Now, I must bid you 
 good-day." He paused at the door ; another 
 thought came into his brain. For an instant he 
 was embarrassed, undecided ; then, dismissing 
 his official character, and simply as an old 
 gentleman with infinite worldly knowledge and 
 infinite human sympathy, he laid his hand on 
 the young man's shoulder: " Mv" friend, reflect 
 for an instant what the condition of the South 
 would be at this moment were such titles to 
 property as yours good; and," — his voice 
 sinking with feeling, — " thank God- that by the 
 Constitution of the United States no attainder 
 of treason can work corruption of blood or 
 forfeiture, except during the life of the person- 
 20 
 
306 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 attainted." At a better recollection of his 
 
 own family history, he said: "Children here 
 7? are not punishable_for the offence of an a n- 
 cestor." Then, with a pressure of his sensitive 
 fingers, he continued : " My boy, remember, 
 restitution involves no confession. Fathers 
 are but human beings like ourselves; when 
 they die, the best thing we can do is to 
 act for them as we wish they might have 
 acted." 
 
 Mr. Frank also left the private office, but he 
 halted in the next room, sat down at a desk, 
 and pondered. 
 
 " Sir, I assure you, you do not know my 
 father. He never made a mistake in his life. 
 He was a man of unquestioned integrity." He 
 repeated the words over and over again, as if 
 the notary still could hear them. 
 
 Reared in the strictest of ecclesiastical col- 
 leges, where credulity had been assiduously 
 fostered and simplicity preserved, his youth 
 was passed in a calm world of perfect submis- 
 sion and perfect trust. In his uncritical mind 
 the visible and invisible world rested on one 
 vast quiescent billow of faith. His father, his 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 307 
 
 mother, his plantation ; as well question the 
 saints, miracles, heaven ! 
 
 The clerks from their desks looked furtively 
 at him as he buried his face in his hands, — the 
 face of a man in helpless anxiety of mind. He 
 had come to the city only three months ago 
 in a vague search for some unknown pleasure 
 which his swelling manhood craved, — a pleas- 
 ure not to be found on the plantation, in the 
 green fields under the blue sky, not in the 
 morning reveille to duty, nor in the tired lan- 
 guor of the welcome curfew. JThe luxury which 
 parsimony had banished from his parents' lives 
 had descended to him intact, principal and in- 
 terest, with the inheritance to buy it, — a heri- 
 tage to spend and a heritage to gratify. The 
 beautiful young girls at that Fleurissant ball ! 
 His life had never held a ball nor a young girl 
 before. Oh, the plainest one there would have 
 been a queen in his home, a houri in his heart ! 
 His home ! Which home, — the little white- 
 washed cabin near the sugar-house, where the 
 sows littered under the gallery and the mules 
 galloped by on their way to the stables, — the 
 home of his birth, the despised overseer's house, 
 
308 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 exhaling menace, inhaling hatred ; or the other 
 home, the home to which he returned from 
 college, the master's residence, the beautiful 
 home which his father had bought for him, with 
 pictures and books, glass and silver, carved 
 furniture and silken hangings? " Bychicanery 
 and rascality ! " 
 
 He had lived in the house, slept in the beds, 
 studied the books. And the pictures, — ah, 
 Nature had given him such sordid, homely par- 
 ents ! He had idolized these pictured ladies 
 and gentlemen. In adoration, he had tried to 
 fit Jiimself, not for heaven, but for them. He 
 had tilled the fields as their successor, main- 
 tained the manor as their heir. " I assure you, 
 there must be some mistake; my father was 
 a man of integrity." If he had not integrity, 
 what had he? Could he, the son, have lived 
 in that house else? And his father and mother 
 both slept in the cemetery of these people, — 
 these Mottes! 
 
 Ideals of marriage had come to him during 
 the long evenings in the quiet house. In fancy 
 he had often led a bride across the threshold of 
 it, — a black-eyed, black-haired bride, like the 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 3°9 
 
 black-eyed, black-haired women in the pic- 
 tures ; and imagination had gone still farther 
 beyond, into those far-off dreams that lure the 
 lonely into domesticity. The tears wet his 
 fingers at the recollection of them. 
 
 Coul d his father have known of the exist- 
 enc e of t he child? That was all the question 
 now; the plantation and the money in bank 
 were a cheap exchange for the redeeming 
 answer. 
 
 Searching weariedly among the commonplace 
 incidents of his child-life for some saving mem- 
 ory which would give testimony in favor of the 
 dead, as one turns and overturns domestic arti- 
 cles in search of a lost jewel, the figure of a 
 quadroon woman came suddenly to remem- 
 brance, clear and distinct, — clearly and distinctly 
 as her voice now sounded in the doorway. 
 
 " Monsieur requests the presence of the gen- 
 tlemen who are to act as witnesses." 
 
 Two of the young clerks, in gala dress, 
 who had been scratching their pens sedulously 
 in feigned indifference to the honor, rose with 
 alacrity. 
 
 This was the woman who had run away with 
 
3 1 o Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 the child ! Morris Frank arrested her, seized 
 her by the wrist, and drew her in through the 
 door of the back office. With an old instinct 
 of fear she resisted and struggled. His father, 
 the overseer, had not handled her color too 
 softly. 
 
 " For God's sake let me go ! What do you 
 want? I have n't done anything! " she cried. 
 
 " Tell me, teU me the truth about that child, — 
 about that baby ! " 
 
 He questioned, he cross-questioned, he twisted 
 and turned her answers. 
 
 " As there is a God in heaven, it 's the truth ! 
 As the blessed Virgin hears me, it 's the truth ! 
 Ask Monsieur Goupilleau, ask the priest, ask 
 old Uncle Ursin on the plantation, — they all 
 know it ! Mr. Frank, Mr. Morris, you are 
 not going to harm her ! I kept it from you ; 
 I would have died before you found it out 
 from me! She doesn't know it! No one 
 knows it ! " 
 
 The same old terror of causeless violence that 
 had made her a fugitive eighteen years ago pos- 
 sessed her again, sweeping away reason and 
 presence of mind, making her Jaelieve, with the 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 3 1 1 
 
 barb arous a nticipations of ferocity which had 
 survived civilization in her, the tragic fate of 
 the parents as immanent to the child. 
 
 " You swear it is the truth? " 
 
 " On the cross, on the Blessed Virgin, on the 
 Saviour." All that was sacred in her religion, 
 all that was terrific in her superstition, she in- 
 vocated with unhesitating tongue to attest a ve- 
 racity impugned with her race by custom and 
 tradition. 
 
 It is not pleasant reading, —a marriage con- 
 tract: stipulations in one clause, counter-stip- 
 ulations in another; so much money here, so 
 much money there ; distrust of the contracting 
 parties, distrust of the relatives, distrust of the 
 unsophisticated goodness of God himself, who 
 had trammels of every notarial variety thrown 
 across any future development of trust and con- 
 fidence. There were provisions against fraud, 
 deception, indebtedness ; provisions against 
 change, indifference, enmity, death, remarriage, 
 against improper alliances of unborn daughters, 
 against dissipation and extravagance of unborn 
 sons, — provisions for everything but the contin- 
 
3 1 2 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 uance of the love which had waxed and grown 
 to the inevitable conclusion of marriage. 
 
 It was a triumph of astuteness on the part 
 of old Madame Montyon. She sat on the sofa 
 nodding her head and purple-flowered bonnet, 
 at each clause repeating the words after Mon- 
 sieur Goupilleau with great satisfaction. 
 
 "Ah, mon Dieu ! " Mademoiselle Angely 
 sighed at the end of it, not knowing anything 
 more appropriate to do or to say. 
 
 " Those marriage contracts, — they are all 
 against the women, the poor women ! That 
 is the way with Eugenie there. Old Lareveil- 
 lere made a marriage contract against her; she 
 had nothing of her own, and all her life there 
 he has held her." Tante Pauline pressed her 
 right thumb expressively against the palm of 
 her left hand. 
 
 " At the last moment I thought," said Ma- 
 dame Montyon to herself, " that Goupilleau 
 would have given her something ; but that was 
 not like a notary, nor a Goupilleau." 
 
 " If I had succeeded in my plans," thought 
 Monsieur Goupilleau, " the favor would have 
 been all the other way." 
 
Marriage of Marie Modeste. 3 1 3 
 
 " Pauvre petite cJiatte ! " thought his wife, as 
 a last resource of consolation, " at least her 
 children will be secure." 
 
 " We will now sign it," said the notary. 
 
 " But I must go for the bride," prompted 
 his wife. 
 
 They seemed to have forgotten her com- "\ 
 pletely in their excitement over the settlement 
 of so much property and money, — both her 
 and the young man who stood unheeded, un- 
 consulted, in the corner of the room ; his own 
 insignificant personal capital of youth, hope, 
 strength, love, honor, ambition, unmentioned 
 in the elaborate catalogue prepared by the 
 step-mother. It was all valueless as an en- 
 dowment. Like an automaton he had been 
 provided for and given over to his childish 
 foible for a wife. 
 
 The noise of the street invaded the parlors, 
 but genteelly and discreetly sifted of impurity 
 by the fine lace curtains at the end windows of 
 the long narrow room. The half-closed shutters 
 gave oblique views of the gallery, with its iron 
 balustrade and canopy, and rows of plants thriv- 
 ing luxuriantly. They had only contracted pots 
 
3^4 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 for root, but the whole blue heavens for foliage. 
 There reigned the gentle obscurity which the 
 people of the climate affect, — an obscurity that 
 flatters rather than conceals the physiognomy, 
 and tones the voices in soft Creole modulations. 
 The green-glazed marine monsters of a tall Pa- 
 lissy vase collected the few entering rays of 
 light, and rose a beacon over an invisible cen- 
 tre-table, which carried an indistinct collection 
 of velvet-cased miniatures, ivory carvings, Bohe- 
 mian glasses, and other small objects, which in 
 Monsieur Goupilleau's days of extravagance 
 gratified the taste for bric-a-brac. 
 
 There was a lull in the conversation. The 
 occupants of the chairs and sofas devoted them- 
 selves to their fans and handkerchiefs, or put 
 on eye-glasses to solve the enigmatical pictures 
 hanging in oblivion, within gilt frames, on the 
 walls. The moments of Madame Goupilleau's 
 absence were slow, dry, and detached. What 
 was said was hurried, indifferent, in an under- 
 tone, mere packing-paper to fill up space, each 
 volunteer fearing to be caught with a truncated 
 word or an unfinished smile on the lips, — the 
 women of course alone risking it. 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 3 1 5 
 
 " Eugenie's rooms are really beautiful ! " 
 
 " Can you see what that is in the corner? " 
 
 " An etagere." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " I never noticed that lamp before." 
 
 "Where? " 
 
 " Right here at your elbow, on the table." 
 
 " Carcel f" 
 
 " And cisele brass ! " 
 
 " How warm it is ! " 
 
 " I believe I feel a draught ! " 
 
 " Mon Dieu! where?" 
 
 " Change your seat." 
 
 " There in the corner is a fauteuil." 
 
 "Who is that old skeleton? " 
 
 " Armand Goupilleau's confidential clerk ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " He will have to read the contract all over 
 again ! " 
 
 " Of course ; the bride did not hear it i " 
 
 " I give them six months after the old lady's 
 death to break it." 
 
 " H'sh ! she '11 hear you, Pauline ! " 
 
 " Tant pis! " 
 
 " Here they are ! " 
 
3 16 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 " Poor little thing! " 
 
 " How pale she is ! " 
 
 " And so frail ! " 
 
 " Just like her mother." 
 
 " H'sh ! they are going to begin ! " 
 
 " Heavens ! What a glare ! " 
 
 " It is barbarous ! " 
 
 Monsieur Goupilleau's confidential clerk was 
 to repeat the deed, — an old man with sight 
 almost beyond recall of double glasses. He 
 stood as near as possible to the coveted day- 
 light of the outside world, against the window, 
 holding the paper as close to his eyes as his 
 long thin nose would permit; it was still too 
 far off for smooth reading. Profiting by the 
 confusion succeeding the entrance, he slyly laid 
 his hand on the shutters to widen the crack of 
 light by the merest trifle ; at a touch they all 
 fell open from top to bottom, letting the sun 
 in like a flash of lightning, striking them all 
 with sudden distinctness, brightening the writ- 
 ten page into delicious legibility. Before a 
 countermanding order could be issued, before 
 the bride could be seated, he began the lecture, 
 overriding the protests of the ladies with his un- 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 3 1 7 
 
 human mechanical voice, cracked by use, ignor- 
 ing the opened fans used as screens against his 
 end of the room. 
 
 The young girl stood where she was. The 
 sun falling across her head increased the fair- 
 ness of her face and the blackness of her hair. 
 She held her hands clasped before her, and 
 seemed with eyes as well as ears listening to 
 the terms on which she was to be admitted to 
 the profession of her love. In the last hours 
 of her innocent, unconscious girlhood she was 
 pathetic, pitiful, to the ladies, who shed furtive 
 tears. The gentlemen, at sight of her, felt a 
 stirring in their hearts and conscience, or 
 maybe the eyes of the married women present 
 resurrected a primitive, latent, effete distrust of 
 themselves, — a remorseful sense of unworthiness 
 as conceded possessors of the other sex. 
 
 After the reading had ended, Marie Modeste 
 still listened and thought, trying to make her 
 head speak as distinctly as her heart had done. 
 
 " You will have the kindness to sign your 
 name here, Mademoiselle," said the old clerk, 
 delighted with his window evolution and the 
 fluency of his rendition of the contract. 
 
3 1 8 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 The young men from the office pressed for- 
 ward alertly, under fear of the awful possibility 
 of being overlooked. The ladies and gentle- 
 men rose from their seats, and all advanced 
 toward the centre-table, where a space was 
 being cleared for the signing. 
 
 The young girl took the pen, which had been 
 dipped in ink, and waited for the papers to be 
 straightened out and pressed flat. 
 
 "Here, on this line, Mademoiselle." She 
 placed her hand where he pointed, and bent 
 over. 
 
 "No! no!" she cried, straightening herself, 
 holding the document in her hand. Her face 
 became red as she heard her weak, thin voice 
 trying to raise and steady itself to audibility in 
 the room full of strange faces. 
 
 "No! no! I cannot sign it! I will not sign 
 it ! I do not wish it ! I refuse ! I give noth- 
 ing, I will take nothing, — nothing ! " 
 
 She forced her lips, trembling convulsively, 
 to utter what was resolutely being proclaimed 
 in her breast. 
 
 " I give nothing but love ! I want nothing 
 but love ! " and the elaborate act, the notarial 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 3 1 9 
 
 work of a week, fell in long thin strips to the 
 floor. 
 
 There was a sudden decline in the value of 
 bonds and stocks and landed investments; 
 Madame Montyon's hillock of gold disappeared 
 for once from before her eyes, leaving them 
 staring at blank poverty. 
 
 " Tudieu ! Tudieu ! " she swore, in her un- 
 whisperable voice. 
 
 " The marriage broken ! Ah, I knew it ! " 
 exclaimed Tante Pauline. 
 
 " Eugenie ! Eugenie ! " Mademoiselle Aurore 
 Angely pulled Madame Goupilleau's gown. 
 "But look at them!! Stop them! It is not 
 proper ! It is not convenable! " 
 
 It was against etiquette which had held him 
 in strict quarantine for twenty-four hours; but 
 the young groom broke from his corner and his 
 passiveness, as unrestrained as if the wedding 
 were past and not to come, and his bride, turn- 
 ing, received him as if she had all the money in 
 the world and he not a cent. Their embrace 
 made all hearts and lips envious. 
 
 Mademoiselle Angely would have had to 
 acknowledge at the confessional that it was not 
 
320 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 so much because it was shocking as because it 
 was a sin, that forced her to turn her back on 
 them. 
 
 The officious young witnesses sprang to the 
 floor to gather up the fragments of the contract. 
 
 The confidential clerk, as deaf as he was 
 blind, and equally conscientious, after showing 
 the place on the document and giving the pen," 
 was intent only upon closing the shutters as 
 he had found them, and as slyly. The room 
 passed again, without warning, into darkness, 
 granting, until the eyes accommodated them- 
 selves to it, momentary shelter to the lovers and 
 relief to the spectators. 
 
 "Ah! she's a fool all the same!" Tante 
 Pauline found time to say. 
 
 " Come ! " said Morris Frank, " take me up 
 there, — instantly ! " 
 
 Grasping the quadroon by the wrist, he fol- 
 lowed up the stairs, through the hall, into a 
 dark room separated by a portih'e from the 
 parlor. Pushing aside the faded red and yellow 
 damask, he stood, hearing, seeing all. The 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 321 
 
 flesh and blood, the face, of his pictured hosts 
 in the old plantation home ! The black-eyed, 
 black-haired girl ! What did she need more 
 than love for a dower? And her lover? What 
 other capital did he need besides the strength 
 of the arms that clasped her? They would de- 
 spise him, insult him, condemn his father, vilify 
 his memory, — the usurper of a home ! 
 
 "Speak! speak! for God's sake, speak!" 
 whispered Marcelite at his side. She was afraid 
 he would change his mind. 
 
 He had dreamed and basked under the eyes 
 of her kindred, while she had been the pro- 
 tegee of a negro woman ! Oh, the years beyond 
 recall ! 
 
 Would they dig up his father and mother, and 
 cast them out of the pilfered grave? 
 
 Her father and mother, — where were they 
 buried? _What would he do with himself with- 
 out a home, without a plantation, without a pro- 
 fession, without, — yes, without a reputation ?__ 
 
 " Speak! speak! " muttered Marcelite. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen ! " No, they had 
 nothing to do with it. " Mademoiselle ! " He 
 crossed the room, pushing aside those in his 
 21 
 
322 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 way; if they had been alone he would have 
 knelt to her. 
 
 " Mademoiselle ! it is all there waiting for 
 you, ready for you, — your plantation, your ser- 
 vants, your home, the pictures, the books, the 
 silver; there, just as your father left them to go 
 to the war, just as your mother left them to fly 
 to her death. Let me make restitution, let me 
 make atonement; but oh, let me implore for 
 the dead, — my father!" He looked so tall 
 in the midst of them ; in his emotion, his stiff, 
 awkward language, so boyish ! His ingenuous 
 eyes were fixed on her face in simple, earnest, 
 humble devotion, as many an evening he had 
 fixed them on the portraits at home. 
 
 With swift, sure impulse,4h_e quadroon woman 
 put herself before him, took the words from his 
 mouth, crazy as she was at the moment. 
 
 " It was my fault, Monsieur ! " to Monsieur 
 Goupilleau. " He did not know it! His father 
 did not know it ! I swear that old Monsieur 
 Frank did not know it ! I_sent word myself 
 that the baby was dead. Old Uncle Ursin 
 knows it 's the truth ; ask him. Monsieur Frank 
 sent him to me. I made him lie. My God ! 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 323 
 
 I didn 't know any better. I thought the Yan- 
 kees would kill her too ! " 
 
 Was it truth, or falsehood? There was no 
 one to certify or convict. Old Uncle Ursin? 
 He had been found dead in his bed before 
 Morris Frank left the plantation. 
 
 " It is all there, and in bank," the young man 
 continued. The bank-book was in his pocket; 
 he got it, handed it to Monsieur Goupilleau. 
 "You will find the amount — " 
 
 He mentioned it quite simply and naturally, — 
 the amount which year after year had been 
 growing in the bank, the result of many a day's 
 hard work, the savings from a life's self-denial 
 and parsimony. It was a fortune to astonish 
 the little room, to strike even the women dumb. 
 He thanked Heaven, as he mentioned it, that the 
 spendings had been trivial. 
 
 " I never suspected it, I grew up unconscious^ 
 of it. The woman, Marcelite, saw me at the 
 ball; she told Monsieur Goupilleau. Mademoi- 
 selle, your marriage contract would have been 
 different if — if I — " 
 
 But Monsieur Goupilleau would not allow 
 any more explanation. It was a coup de theatre 
 
324 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 after his own heart, — a voluntary restitution, no 
 lawsuit, no revelations ; he could not improve 
 it with any additions, any commendations of his 
 own, for his voice in the general hubbub de- 
 serted him, his eyes blinded his spectacles. 
 Frenchman as he was, if he could have been 
 granted a son then and there, it would have 
 been the young German, the overseer's boy, he 
 would have chosen, as he told him over and 
 over again, or tried to tell him. 
 
 " It is she who is too good for him, 
 now," whispered Tante Pauline to Mademoi- 
 selle Aurore. 
 
 " Hcin! She is a partie, after all ! " Madame 
 Montyon felt elated, for she flattered herself 
 that it was she who by her determination had 
 forced the hand of Providence. " I am going 
 to have an angel for a daughter-in-law." 
 
 " Felix! F61ix ! " cried Mademoiselle Aurore, 
 clasping her hands. " What can you say now 
 against the good God? [That superb plantation 
 in St. James ! " For the plantation was known 
 all up and down the coast, and the fame of 
 the Frank management was a State affair. \ 
 
 " BS/ ! Zozo ! Mamzelle Marie! To go 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. 325 
 
 back ! To see it all, — the pictures, the 
 books, the furniture ! You did n't believe 
 me ! You thought I was lying — " 
 
 " That quadroon will raise the roof off the 
 house," said Tante Pauline ; " when they begin 
 their noise, there is no stopping them." 
 
 " Monsieur Morris," — ■ Marcelite threw herself 
 before him, — " let me work for you, let me be 
 your slave — " 
 
 " Mignonne ! Mignonne!" expostulated Ma- 
 dame Goupilleau with Marie. " You must not 
 cry so, even for happiness ! It is true, my 
 child, it is all true ! Do you not hear Charles, 
 Armand, — all of them? En fin, Marcelite! 
 control yourself; you are exciting the child 
 with your screaming. " Non, Monsieur" to 
 Charles, "to-day she is still mine; to-morrow I 
 will not dispute her with you. Armand, my 
 friend, " to her husband, " send them all away, 
 get rid of them, we must have some repose 
 before the ceremony." 
 
 "Well, Goupilleau," said the Madame Mon- 
 tyon, composing her face after a pinch of snuff, 
 " we are to have all our trouble over again ! 
 
 " Of course, Madame ! of course, the young 
 
326 Marriage of Marie Modest e. 
 
 lady's interests must now be protected." He 
 stumbled against Marcelite. " Eh ! my good 
 woman ! " My good woman ! He raised her 
 from the floor and held both her hands. " It is 
 admirable, it is sublime. Why do you weep? 
 He could not have done it better himself, — 
 your Monsieur Motte ! " 
 
 It was not Madame Goupilleau, but Marcelite, 
 who walked behind the bride that night to the 
 altar, for so Marie Modeste had commanded. 
 It was not to Madame Goupilleau, but to Marce- 
 lite, that the bride turned for her first blessing 
 after the ceremony. It was not Madame Goupil- 
 leau, but Marcelite, who folded away the mar- 
 riage garments that night. It was not from 
 Madame Goupilleau, but -from Marcelite, that 
 Charles Montyon received his bride. It was not 
 Madame Goupilleau, nor any other woman, but 
 Marcelite, who in her distant, unlighted room 
 watched the night through, shedding on the 
 bridal wreath the tears that only mothers shed 
 on bridal wreaths of daughters, praying the 
 prayers that only mothers pray on the wedding 
 nights of daughters. 
 
Marriage of Marie Modest e. Z 2 7 
 
 Time still carries on the story, life still fur- 
 nishes the incidents ; there is no last chapter to 
 the record. The intercepted inheritance has 
 come to the rightful heir, but it has not de- 
 parted from the young German. Morris Frank 
 had claims which not he, but Monsieur Gou- 
 pilleau, asserted. He is part owner of the Ste. 
 Marie plantation, sole manager; his crops rival 
 the celebrated ones of his father; his yield of 
 cane leads the statistics of his State. The old 
 house he loved is still his home, — the home 
 too of Marie Modeste, her husband, her chil- 
 dren, and Marcelite. 
 
 They all live well, happily, prosperously to- 
 gether; for in giving hearts, God assigned 
 destinies. 
 
--- 
 
 . ..