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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Madame Delphine
+
+Author: George W. Cable
+
+Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19703]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAME DELPHINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   MADAME DELPHINE
+                        BY
+                   GEORGE W. CABLE
+
+_Author of "Old Creole Days," "The Grandissimes," etc._
+
+                      NEW YORK
+                  COPYRIGHT
+         BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+              743 AND 745 BROADWAY
+                        1881
+              PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE & CO.,
+          NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                     CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.                           PAGE
+AN OLD HOUSE                          1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+MADAME DELPHINE                       7
+
+CHAPTER III.
+CAPITAINE LEMAITRE                   12
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THREE FRIENDS                        18
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE CAP FITS                         28
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+A CRY OF DISTRESS                    40
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+MICHÉ VIGNEVIELLE                    50
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+SHE                                  59
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+OLIVE                                68
+
+CHAPTER X.
+BIRDS                                74
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+FACE TO FACE                         82
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE MOTHER BIRD                      90
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+TRIBULATION                          99
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+BY AN OATH                          106
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+KYRIE ELEISON                       120
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                  MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+AN OLD HOUSE.
+
+
+A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to
+and across Canal street, the central avenue of the city, and to that
+corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the
+arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant
+merchandise. The crowd--and if it is near the time of the carnival it
+will be great--will follow Canal street.
+
+But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of
+Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to
+call the Rue Royale. You will pass a few restaurants, a few auction
+rooms, a few furniture warehouses, and will hardly realize that you
+have left behind you the activity and clatter of a city of merchants
+before you find yourself in a region of architectural decrepitude, where
+an ancient and foreign-seeming domestic life, in second stories,
+overhangs the ruins of a former commercial prosperity, and upon
+everything has settled down a long Sabbath of decay. The vehicles in the
+street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are
+shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright
+mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great
+doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street
+windows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten,
+and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the older
+Franco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick betray a squalor almost oriental.
+
+Yet beauty lingers here. To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes
+you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched
+wicket in some _porte-cochère_--red-painted brick pavement, foliage of
+dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming
+parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten
+window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a
+glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and much
+similar rich antiquity.
+
+The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street
+a sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are putting
+you off your guard, there will pass you a woman--more likely two or
+three--of patrician beauty.
+
+Now, if you will go far enough down this old street, you will see, as
+you approach its intersection with----. Names in that region elude one
+like ghosts.
+
+However, as you begin to find the way a trifle more open, you will not
+fail to notice on the right-hand side, about midway of the square, a
+small, low, brick house of a story and a half, set out upon the
+sidewalk, as weather-beaten and mute as an aged beggar fallen asleep.
+Its corrugated roof of dull red tiles, sloping down toward you with an
+inward curve, is overgrown with weeds, and in the fall of the year is
+gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with
+your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten
+shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are
+shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated.
+Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the
+house has the lock-jaw. There are two doors, and to each a single
+chipped and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a
+line with the house, is a garden masked from view by a high, close
+board-fence. You may see the tops of its fruit-trees--pomegranate,
+peach, banana, fig, pear, and particularly one large orange, close by
+the fence, that must be very old.
+
+The residents over the narrow way, who live in a three-story house,
+originally of much pretension, but from whose front door hard times have
+removed almost all vestiges of paint, will tell you:
+
+"Yass, de 'ouse is in'abit; 'tis live in."
+
+And this is likely to be all the information you get--not that they
+would not tell, but they cannot grasp the idea that you wish to
+know--until, possibly, just as you are turning to depart, your
+informant, in a single word and with the most evident non-appreciation
+of its value, drops the simple key to the whole matter:
+
+"Dey's quadroons."
+
+He may then be aroused to mention the better appearance of the place in
+former years, when the houses of this region generally stood farther
+apart, and that garden comprised the whole square.
+
+Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as she
+was commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. That
+she owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceased
+companion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as to
+be, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject of
+gossip. She was never pointed out by the denizens of the quarter as a
+character, nor her house as a "feature." It would have passed all Creole
+powers of guessing to divine what you could find worthy of inquiry
+concerning a retired quadroon woman; and not the least puzzled of all
+would have been the timid and restive Madame Delphine herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+
+During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon caste
+of New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations--sprung, upon
+the one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial military
+service which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-American
+frontier life, and, upon the other hand, from comely Ethiopians culled
+out of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at the
+ship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still in
+their head-dresses,--these earlier generations, with scars of battle or
+private rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on the
+manumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was to
+result from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devoted
+to the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperian
+excellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to the
+present, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the _gens de
+couleur_ whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with
+"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing of
+toilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gate-way of
+their close-fenced gardens, and staring shrinkingly at you as you pass,
+like a nest of yellow kittens.
+
+But as the present century was in its second and third decades, the
+_quadroones_ (for we must contrive a feminine spelling to define the
+strict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor.
+Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessness
+of feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles of
+beauty,--for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them,--their
+fascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and pretty
+wit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste and
+elegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense they were
+indeed the sirens of this land, where it seemed "always afternoon"--a
+momentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, so
+beautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of special
+chapters by writers of the day more original than correct as social
+philosophers.
+
+The balls that were got up for them by the male _sang-pur_ were to that
+day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same
+nights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates of
+government,--municipal, state, federal,--those of the army, of the
+learned professions and of the clubs,--in short, the white male
+aristocracy in everything save the ecclesiastical desk,--were there.
+Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. No
+distinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!
+They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, and
+wore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likeness
+to innocence.
+
+Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger, could have told you all about
+it; though hardly, I suppose, without tears.
+
+But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendor
+was set, and her husband--let us call him so for her sake--was long
+dead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man of
+noble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we can
+do without.
+
+Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine's
+chief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked up
+in-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,--a very
+worthy person; and they were, may be, nearer correct than they knew.
+They rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a
+small, rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a
+gentle thoughtfulness of expression which it would take long to
+describe: call it a widow's look.
+
+In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made of
+a gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is gone now, and
+was out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron staple
+clasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.
+
+Which leads us to speak of another person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.
+
+
+He was one of those men that might be any age,--thirty, forty,
+forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and what
+was only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but also
+luminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterward
+remembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of his
+eyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the
+closest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not with
+the oddness that he who reared him had striven to produce.
+
+He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both in
+infancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa of
+the colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make "his
+boy" as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as it
+became a pure-blooded French Creole to be who could trace his pedigree
+back to the god Mars.
+
+"Remember, my boy," was the adjuration received by him as regularly as
+his waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever kept
+the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should
+bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from
+the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of
+gentle, _judicial_ benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house
+used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.
+His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial
+expression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or of
+large dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.
+
+And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of his
+grandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor was he
+loud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him to
+society; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and the
+old man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up to
+that pitch where he scorned to practice any vice, or any virtue, that
+did not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only were
+wanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old man
+died. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to
+see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride,
+of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
+
+The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority
+(say 1808 or 1812), only merchant blacksmiths, so to speak, a term
+intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands,
+who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and
+moved in society among its autocrats. But they were full of
+possibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with already a
+pronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivals
+they would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac and
+Barataria.
+
+Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had not
+only the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turn
+for accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with an
+enterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himself
+with the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in the
+Lafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with their
+shining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ring
+with the stroke of their hammers; but as a--there was no occasion to
+mince the word in those days--smuggler.
+
+Smuggler--patriot--where was the difference? Beyond the ken of a
+community to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long been
+merely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into the
+all-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come under a
+kinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customs
+were dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man be
+more than Capitaine Lemaitre was--the soul of honor, the pink of
+courtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of the
+elephant; frank--the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: his
+paper was good in Toulouse street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he
+was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimer
+virtues.
+
+Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history.
+Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted in
+their interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to grow
+disreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made upon
+them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. The
+business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising
+Lafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering."
+
+Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.
+Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered
+money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then
+hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they
+had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the
+market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were
+received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the
+battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--here
+tradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.
+
+Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among
+the missing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THREE FRIENDS.
+
+
+The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was
+a little man fondly known among his people as Père Jerome. He was a
+Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling
+was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,
+close fence, and reached by a narrow outdoor stair from the green batten
+gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated behind
+by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of the
+chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in benediction.
+The name of the street--ah! there is where light is wanting. Save the
+Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of record concerning
+churches at that time, though they were springing up here and there.
+All there is certainty of is that Père Jerome's frame chapel was some
+little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have survived the passage of
+years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory" "so as by fire." His
+parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell distinctly there the
+vow of poverty. His bedchamber was bare and clean, and the bed in it
+narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room that would tempt
+a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was small, but
+stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of fine wood,
+and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling pleasantry. His
+mother's and sister's doing, Père Jerome would explain; they would not
+permit this apartment--or department--to suffer. Therein, as well as in
+the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort, that explained
+interestingly the Père Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile.
+
+In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes to
+sit with Père Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached--one,
+Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his
+brother-in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest
+manhood, and both, like the little priest himself, the regretful
+rememberers of a fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like Père
+Jerome, they had come, through years, to the thick of life's
+conflicts,--the priest's brother-in-law a physician, the other an
+attorney, and brother-in-law to the lonely wanderer,--yet they loved to
+huddle around this small board, and be boys again in heart while men in
+mind. Neither one nor another was leader. In earlier days they had
+always yielded to him who no longer met with them a certain
+chieftainship, and they still thought of him and talked of him, and, in
+their conjectures, groped after him, as one of whom they continued to
+expect greater things than of themselves.
+
+They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing,
+speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way,
+the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of
+the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the
+lawyer, who was half Américain; but running sometimes into English and
+sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.
+
+Père Jerome advanced an idea something like this:
+
+"It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality
+of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know
+how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or
+our fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is a
+community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human since
+Adam--nay, nor Adam himself--ever sinned entirely to himself. And so I
+never am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel my
+conscience pointing at me as one of the accessories."
+
+"In a word," said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we are
+partly to blame for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?"
+
+Father Jerome smiled.
+
+"No; a man cannot plead so in his own defense; our first father tried
+that, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absent
+friend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as
+partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser
+care and with better companions, how different might he not have been!
+How can _we_ speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from
+that name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his
+speech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Père Jerome, 'ow dat is a
+dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Aint it?'
+'Ah, Madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I'ope de good God will fo'give me
+an' you fo' dat!'"
+
+Jean Thompson answered quickly:
+
+"You should not have let her say that."
+
+"_Mais_, fo' w'y?"
+
+"Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the
+more to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have
+said,"--the attorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has
+merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the
+republic of Carthagena!'"
+
+"_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his
+brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.
+
+"Why not?" demanded Thompson.
+
+"Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand."
+
+Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else,
+when Père Jerome spoke.
+
+"I will tell you what I could have said. I could have said: 'Madame,
+yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him. He stum'le in de dark; but dat good God
+will mek it a _mo' terrible_ fo' dat man, oohever he is, w'at put 'at
+light out!'"
+
+"But how do you know he is a pirate?" demanded Thompson, aggressively.
+
+"How do we know?" said the little priest, returning to French. "Ah!
+there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that come
+to us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba,
+of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy and
+gentility----"*
+
+[*See Gazettes of the period.]
+
+"And whose name is Lafitte," said the obstinate attorney.
+
+"And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte," insisted Père Jerome.
+
+"Daz troo, Jean," said Doctor Varrillat. "We hall know daz troo."
+
+Père Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air of
+secrecy, in French.
+
+"You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. You
+have heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of the
+ship himself drove them off."
+
+"An incredible story," said Thompson.
+
+"But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. There
+was on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck,
+where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautiful
+than ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a small
+missal spread open, and, her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commanded
+him to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood
+gazing on her face, which did not quail; and then, with a low bow, said:
+'Give me this book and I will do your bidding.' She gave him the book
+and bade him leave the ship, and he left it unmolested."
+
+Père Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again,
+once or twice, with his dimpled smile.
+
+"But he speaks English, they say," said Jean Thompson.
+
+"He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us," said the priest.
+
+"But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte."
+
+"Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your brother-in-law, Jean Thompson!
+It is your wife's brother! Not Lafitte, but" (softly) "Lemaitre!
+Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!"
+
+The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on either
+face, and presently broke into a laugh.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dad
+cog-an'-bull fo' yo' negs summon."
+
+Père Jerome's eyes lighted up--
+
+"I goin' to do it!"
+
+"I tell you," said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, "iv
+dad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyare
+nut'n fo' doze creed; _he fall in love_!"
+
+Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to Père
+Jerome:
+
+"But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e kyare fo' dad creed."
+
+Père Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkable
+effects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find him
+attributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find for
+some a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was but
+one of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity and
+incredible eccentricity Père Jerome had a regular correspondent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE CAP FITS.
+
+
+About two months after the conversation just given, and therefore
+somewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, Père Jerome
+delighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcement
+that he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the following
+Sabbath--not there, but in the cathedral.
+
+He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there were
+two or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and said
+he would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of the
+Bible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet "the common people heard
+him gladly." When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smiled
+a little and answered his informant,--whom he knew to be one of the
+whisperers himself,--laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder:
+
+"Father Murphy,"--or whatever the name was,--"your words comfort me."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Because--'_Væ quum benedixerint mihi homines_!'"*
+
+[*"Woe unto me, when all men speak well of me!"]
+
+The appointed morning, when it came, was one of those exquisite days in
+which there is such a universal harmony, that worship rises from the
+heart like a spring.
+
+"Truly," said Père Jerome to the companion who was to assist him in the
+mass, "this is a Sabbath day which we do not have to make holy, but only
+to _keep_ so."
+
+May be it was one of the secrets of Père Jerome's success as a preacher,
+that he took more thought as to how he should feel, than as to what he
+should say.
+
+The cathedral of those days was called a very plain old pile, boasting
+neither beauty nor riches; but to Père Jerome it was very lovely; and
+before its homely altar, not homely to him, in the performance of those
+solemn offices, symbols of heaven's mightiest truths, in the hearing of
+the organ's harmonies, and the yet more eloquent interunion of human
+voices in the choir, in overlooking the worshipping throng which knelt
+under the soft, chromatic lights, and in breathing the sacrificial odors
+of the chancel, he found a deep and solemn joy; and yet I guess the
+finest thought of his soul the while was one that came thrice and again:
+
+"Be not deceived, Père Jerome, because saintliness of feeling is easy
+here; you are the same priest who overslept this morning, and overate
+yesterday, and will, in some way, easily go wrong to-morrow and the day
+after."
+
+He took it with him when--the _Veni Creator_ sung--he went into the
+pulpit. Of the sermon he preached, tradition has preserved for us only a
+few brief sayings, but they are strong and sweet.
+
+"My friends," he said,--this was near the beginning,--"the angry words
+of God's book are very merciful--they are meant to drive us home; but
+the tender words, my friends, they are sometimes terrible! Notice these,
+the tenderest words of the tenderest prayer that ever came from the lips
+of a blessed martyr--the dying words of the holy Saint Stephen, 'Lord,
+lay not this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dreadful in that?
+Read it thus: 'Lord, lay not this sin to _their_ charge.' Not to the
+charge of them who stoned him? To whose charge then? Go ask the holy
+Saint Paul. Three years afterward, praying in the temple at Jerusalem,
+he answered that question: 'I stood by and consented.' He answered for
+himself only; but the Day must come when all that wicked council that
+sent Saint Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of Jerusalem,
+must hold up the hand and say: 'We, also, Lord--we stood by.' Ah!
+friends, under the simpler meaning of that dying saint's prayer for the
+pardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth that we all have a
+share in one another's sins."
+
+Thus Père Jerome touched his key-note. All that time has spared us
+beside may be given in a few sentences.
+
+"Ah!" he cried once, "if it were merely my own sins that I had to answer
+for, I might hold up my head before the rest of mankind; but no, no, my
+friends--we cannot look each other in the face, for each has helped the
+other to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of common
+disgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despair
+ought to bind us together and forever silence the voice of scorn!"
+
+And again, this:
+
+"Even in the promise to Noë, not again to destroy the race with a flood,
+there is a whisper of solemn warning. The moral account of the
+antediluvians was closed off and the balance brought down in the year of
+the deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on, and
+the blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop it
+till the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come at
+last, when thou wilt destroy the world, and stop the interest on my
+account!"
+
+It was about at this point that Père Jerome noticed, more particularly
+than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a
+small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who
+gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress,
+seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were
+scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small,
+by gloves.
+
+"Quadroones," thought he, with a stir of deep pity.
+
+Once, as he uttered some stirring word, he saw the mother and daughter
+(if such they were), while they still bent their gaze upon him, clasp
+each other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at these
+words:
+
+"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans
+to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the _nots_
+rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to
+purgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who
+strew it with thorns and briers!"
+
+The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. He
+glanced that way again as he said:
+
+"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaven
+this day had they never had a father and mother, but had got their
+religious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisiana
+this holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"
+
+The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged
+the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full
+of tears.
+
+"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side
+aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other,
+"who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only
+principle of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even
+gain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance to
+nature, defiance to reason; defiance and defiance and defiance."
+
+"He is going to tell it!" murmured Evariste to Jean.
+
+"This man," continued Père Jerome, "became a smuggler and at last a
+pirate in the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, lay not that sin to his charge
+alone! But a strange thing followed. Being in command of men of a sort
+that to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he now
+found himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemn
+companionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm, the
+heavens by day, the heavens by night. My friends, that was the first
+time in his life that he ever found himself in really good company.
+
+"Now, this man had a great aptness for accounts. He had kept them--had
+rendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, and
+closed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result is
+plain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holy
+spectacle of the starry deep above and the watery deep below, was sure
+to find himself, sooner or later, mastered by the conviction that the
+great Author of this majestic creation keeps account of it; and one
+night there came to him, like a spirit walking on the sea, the awful,
+silent question: 'My account with God--how does it stand?' Ah! friends,
+that is a question which the book of nature does not answer.
+
+"Did I say the book of nature is a catechism? Yes. But, after it answers
+the first question with 'God,' nothing but questions follow; and so, one
+day, this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one little book which
+answered those questions. God help him to understand it! and God help
+you, monsieur and you, madame, sitting here in your _smuggled clothes_,
+to beat upon the breast with me and cry, 'I, too, Lord--I, too, stood by
+and consented.'"
+
+Père Jerome had not intended these for his closing words; but just
+there, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, a
+man rose slowly from his seat and regarded him steadily with a kind,
+bronzed, sedate face, and the sermon, as if by a sign of command, was
+ended. While the _Credo_ was being chanted he was still there; but when,
+a moment after its close, the eye of Père Jerome returned in that
+direction, his place was empty.
+
+As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was
+turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he
+just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him
+to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole patois,
+saying, with some timid haste:
+
+"Good-morning, Père--Père Jerome; Père Jerome, we thank the good God for
+that sermon."
+
+"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had
+noticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was a
+beautiful figure, but the slight effort of Père Jerome's kind eyes to
+see through the veil was vain. He would presently have passed on, but
+the one who had spoken before said:
+
+"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."
+
+"Yes; I am going this way to see a sick person."
+
+The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and
+timidity.
+
+"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good
+God," she said.
+
+Père Jerome smiled:
+
+"God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it,
+just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have
+added that he loved to do it, quite as much.
+
+It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get
+courage to ask it.
+
+"You have a little boy?" asked the priest.
+
+"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Then
+she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness
+asked:
+
+"Père Jerome, what was the name of that man?"
+
+"His name?" said the priest. "You wish to know his name?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur" (or _Miché_, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful
+story." The speaker's companion looked another way.
+
+"His name," said Father Jerome,--"some say one name and some another.
+Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him? And
+do you go to my church, Madame----?"
+
+"No, Miché; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"--she
+choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this
+mark of confidence--"is Madame Delphine--Delphine Carraze."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A CRY OF DISTRESS.
+
+
+Père Jerome's smile and exclamation, as some days later he entered his
+parlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative of
+hearty greeting rather than surprise.
+
+"Madame Delphine!"
+
+Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for though
+another Sunday had not yet come around, the slim, smallish figure
+sitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire,
+which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was Delphine
+Carraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over and
+above an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he had
+recognized her voice.
+
+She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then looked to the floor, and
+began a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiled
+weakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note,
+frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes, while shadows of
+anxiety and smiles of apology chased each other rapidly across her face.
+She was trying to ask his advice.
+
+"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
+downcast eyes:
+
+"You know,--probably I should have said this in the confessional, but--
+
+"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
+perhaps; you want a friend."
+
+She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.
+
+"I"--she ceased. "I have done a"--she dropped her head and shook it
+despondingly--"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
+turned away her face.
+
+Père Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
+evident intention of speaking at length.
+
+"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
+lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
+murmured--"I fell in love."
+
+She said no more, and by and by Père Jerome replied:
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
+love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
+smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
+answer for, and yet I think God may have said: 'She is a quadroone; all
+the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
+her--almost compulsory,--charge it to account of whom it may concern."
+
+"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it might
+fall upon--" Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips and
+nervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good--as good as
+the law would let him be--better, indeed, for he left me property, which
+really the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter very
+much. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error and
+asking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to them when
+he died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteen
+years. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. And
+then--at last--" Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligently
+with her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of her
+lap.
+
+"At last your mother-heart conquered," said Père Jerome.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was she
+did not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she asked
+me to let her come--." The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "I
+know it was wicked, but--I said, come."
+
+The tears dripped through her hands upon her dress.
+
+"Was it she who was with you last Sunday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And now you do not know what to do with her?"
+
+"_Ah! c'est ça, oui!_--that is it."
+
+"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Oh, thank God, no! you would never believe she was my daughter; she is
+white and beautiful!"
+
+"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."
+
+"Alas! yes."
+
+Père Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
+out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.
+
+"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
+Delphine without changing his attitude.
+
+Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.
+
+"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
+speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
+dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
+which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
+happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
+cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which they
+have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.
+
+"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
+to the worst.
+
+The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief,
+with the stifled cry:
+
+"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine," said Père Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is
+sure: we _must_ find a way out of this trouble."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"
+
+"But it must be!" said the priest.
+
+"But how shall it be?" asked the desponding woman.
+
+"Ah!" said Père Jerome, with a shrug, "God knows."
+
+"Yes," said the quadroone, with a quick sparkle in her gentle eye; "and
+I know, if God would tell anybody, He would tell you!"
+
+The priest smiled and rose.
+
+"Do you think so? Well, leave me to think of it. I will ask Him."
+
+"And He will tell you!" she replied. "And He will bless you!" She rose
+and gave her hand. As she withdrew it she smiled. "I had such a strange
+dream," she said, backing toward the door.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes. I got my troubles all mixed up with your sermon. I dreamed I made
+that pirate the guardian of my daughter."
+
+Père Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.
+
+"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this
+country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think
+that one is, without doubt, the best."
+
+"Without doubt," echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawing
+backward. Père Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.
+
+The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon the
+threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting
+from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair
+where the hat had covered it and dark below, gently stroking back his
+very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while
+Père Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger
+hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's
+eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor
+were of white duck.
+
+"Well, Père Jerome," she said, in a hurried under-tone, "I am just going
+to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"
+
+"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, Madame
+Carraze."
+
+And as she departed, the priest turned to the new-comer and extended
+both hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been
+addressing the quadroone:
+
+"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"
+
+They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing
+with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often
+mentioning Evariste and often Jean.
+
+Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to Père
+Jerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. She
+passed through the one and with downcast eyes was standing at the other,
+her hand lifted to knock, when the door was drawn open and the white
+duck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonade
+suit.
+
+"Yes," the voice of Père Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in the
+door--"Ah! Madame--"
+
+"I lef' my para_sol_," said Madame Delphine, in English.
+
+There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere down
+under her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventional
+prohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, and
+carried a parasol.
+
+Père Jerome turned and brought it.
+
+He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor had
+disappeared.
+
+"Madame Delphine, you saw dat man?"
+
+"Not his face."
+
+"You couldn' billieve me iv I tell you w'at dat man pur_pose_ to do!"
+
+"Is dad so, Père Jerome?"
+
+"He's goin' to hopen a bank!"
+
+"Ah!" said Madame Delphine, seeing she was expected to be astonished.
+
+Père Jerome evidently longed to tell something that was best kept
+secret; he repressed the impulse, but his heart had to say something. He
+threw forward one hand and looking pleasantly at Madame Delphine, with
+his lips dropped apart, clenched his extended hand and thrusting it
+toward the ground, said in a solemn under-tone:
+
+"He is God's own banker, Madame Delphine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MICHÉ VIGNEVIELLE.
+
+
+Madame Delphine sold one of the corner lots of her property. She had
+almost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequence
+of the sale, she had a few large bank-notes sewed up in her petticoat,
+and one day--may be a fortnight after her tearful interview with Père
+Jerome--she found it necessary to get one of these changed into small
+money. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the other
+for a bank which was not in that street at all, when she noticed a small
+sign hanging above a door, bearing the name "Vignevielle." She looked
+in. Père Jerome had told her (when she had gone to him to ask where she
+should apply for change) that if she could only wait a few days, there
+would be a new concern opened in Toulouse street,--it really seemed as
+if Vignevielle was the name, if she could judge; it looked to be, and it
+was, a private banker's,--"U. L. Vignevielle's," according to a larger
+inscription which met her eyes as she ventured in. Behind the counter,
+exchanging some last words with a busy-mannered man outside, who, in
+withdrawing, seemed bent on running over Madame Delphine, stood the man
+in blue cottonade, whom she had met in Père Jerome's door-way. Now, for
+the first time, she saw his face, its strong, grave, human kindness
+shining softly on each and every bronzed feature. The recognition was
+mutual. He took pains to speak first, saying, in a re-assuring tone, and
+in the language he had last heard her use:
+
+"'Ow I kin serve you, Madame?"
+
+"Iv you pliz, to mague dad bill change, Miché."
+
+She pulled from her pocket a wad of dark cotton handkerchief, from which
+she began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had an
+uncommonly sweet voice, and it seemed so to strike Monsieur Vignevielle.
+He spoke to her once or twice more, as he waited on her, each time in
+English, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, and
+presently, as she turned to go, he said:
+
+"Madame Carraze!"
+
+She started a little, but bethought herself instantly that he had heard
+her name in Père Jerome's parlor. The good father might even have said a
+few words about her after her first departure; he had such an
+overflowing heart.
+
+"Madame Carraze," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "doze kine of note wad you
+'_an_' me juz now is bein' contrefit. You muz tek kyah from doze kine of
+note. You see--" He drew from his cash-drawer a note resembling the one
+he had just changed for her, and proceeded to point out certain tests of
+genuineness. The counterfeit, he said, was so and so.
+
+"Bud," she exclaimed, with much dismay, "dad was de manner of my bill!
+Id muz be--led me see dad bill wad I give you,--if you pliz, Miché."
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle turned to engage in conversation with an employé
+and a new visitor, and gave no sign of hearing Madame Delphine's voice.
+She asked a second time, with like result, lingered timidly, and as he
+turned to give his attention to a third visitor, reiterated:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle, I wizh you pliz led----"
+
+"Madame Carraze," he said, turning so suddenly as to make the frightened
+little woman start, but extending his palm with a show of frankness, and
+assuming a look of benignant patience, "'ow I kin fine doze note now,
+mongs' all de rez? Iv you pliz nod to mague me doze troub'."
+
+The dimmest shadow of a smile seemed only to give his words a more
+kindly authoritative import, and as he turned away again with a manner
+suggestive of finality, Madame Delphine found no choice but to depart.
+But she went away loving the ground beneath the feet of Monsieur U. L.
+Vignevielle.
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome!" she exclaimed in the corrupt French of her caste,
+meeting the little father on the street a few days later, "you told the
+truth that day in your parlor. _Mo conné li à c't heure_. I know him
+now; he is just what you called him."
+
+"Why do you not make him _your_ banker, also, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I have done so this very day!" she replied, with more happiness in her
+eyes than Père Jerome had ever before seen there.
+
+"Madame Delphine," he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make _him_ your
+daughter's guardian; for myself, being a priest, it would not be best;
+but ask him; I believe he will not refuse you."
+
+Madame Delphine's face grew still brighter as he spoke.
+
+"It was in my mind," she said.
+
+Yet to the timorous Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after
+another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks
+elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at
+length, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind Monsieur
+Vignevielle's banking-room,--he sitting beside a table, and she, more
+timid and demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door,--she
+said, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seem
+unimportant, and yet with some tremor of voice:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle, I bin maguing my will." (Having commenced their
+acquaintance in English, they spoke nothing else.)
+
+"'Tis a good idy," responded the banker.
+
+"I kin mague you de troub' to kib dad will fo' me, Miché Vignevielle?"
+
+"Yez."
+
+She looked up with grateful re-assurance; but her eyes dropped again as
+she said:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle----" Here she choked, and began her peculiar motion
+of laying folds in the skirt of her dress, with trembling fingers. She
+lifted her eyes, and as they met the look of deep and placid kindness
+that was in his face, some courage returned, and she said:
+
+"Miché."
+
+"Wad you wand?" asked he, gently.
+
+"If it arrive to me to die----"
+
+"Yez?"
+
+Her words were scarcely audible:
+
+"I wand you teg kyah my lill' girl."
+
+"You 'ave one lill' gal, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She nodded with her face down.
+
+"An' you godd some mo' chillen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I nevva know dad, Madame Carraze. She's a lill' small gal?"
+
+Mothers forget their daughters' stature. Madame Delphine said:
+
+"Yez."
+
+For a few moments neither spoke, and then Monsieur Vignevielle said:
+
+"I will do dad."
+
+"Lag she been you' h-own?" asked the mother, suffering from her own
+boldness.
+
+"She's a good lill' chile, eh?"
+
+"Miché, she's a lill' hangel!" exclaimed Madame Delphine, with a look of
+distress.
+
+"Yez; I teg kyah 'v 'er, lag my h-own. I mague you dad promise."
+
+"But----" There was something still in the way, Madame Delphine seemed
+to think.
+
+The banker waited in silence.
+
+"I suppose you will want to see my lill' girl?"
+
+He smiled; for she looked at him as if she would implore him to decline.
+
+"Oh, I tek you' word fo' hall dad, Madame Carraze. It mague no differend
+wad she loog lag; I don' wan' see 'er."
+
+Madame Delphine's parting smile--she went very shortly--was gratitude
+beyond speech.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle returned to the seat he had left, and resumed a
+newspaper,--the _Louisiana Gazette_ in all probability,--which he had
+laid down upon Madame Delphine's entrance. His eyes fell upon a
+paragraph which had previously escaped his notice. There they rested.
+Either he read it over and over unwearyingly, or he was lost in thought.
+Jean Thompson entered.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Thompson, in a suppressed tone, bending a little across
+the table, and laying one palm upon a package of papers which lay in the
+other, "it is completed. You could retire from your business any day
+inside of six hours without loss to anybody." (Both here and elsewhere,
+let it be understood that where good English is given the words were
+spoken in good French.)
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle raised his eyes and extended the newspaper to the
+attorney, who received it and read the paragraph. Its substance was that
+a certain vessel of the navy had returned from a cruise in the Gulf of
+Mexico and Straits of Florida, where she had done valuable service
+against the pirates--having, for instance, destroyed in one fortnight in
+January last twelve pirate vessels afloat, two on the stocks, and three
+establishments ashore.
+
+"United States brig _Porpoise_," repeated Jean Thompson. "Do you know
+her?"
+
+"We are acquainted," said Monsieur Vignevielle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SHE.
+
+
+A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neat
+garb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, a
+silent bow, a new sign in the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane,
+walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal
+Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti--these were
+all; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the return
+of Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and early
+life.
+
+But we hardly give the event its right name. It was Capitaine Lemaitre
+who had disappeared; it was Monsieur Vignevielle who had come back. The
+pleasures, the haunts, the companions, that had once held out their
+charms to the impetuous youth, offered no enticements to Madame
+Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his
+grandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above low
+indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves
+through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it
+loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all.
+Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.
+
+"It is the right way," he said to Père Jerome, the day we saw him there.
+"Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his
+executor."
+
+"He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently.
+
+"On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f."
+
+Evariste spoke.
+
+"Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go
+crazy."
+
+"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy.
+"You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper
+paragraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I
+claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship.' He is
+crazy."
+
+Of course Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it,
+and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the _banquettes_ and at the clubs;
+and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover
+was a trifle snarled in his top-hamper.
+
+This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricities
+of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactions
+in business.
+
+"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not running
+a charitable institution!"
+
+"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversation
+ceased.
+
+"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the
+attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of
+it?"
+
+"And make the end worse than the beginning," said the banker, with a
+gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.
+
+"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he
+seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those
+who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but
+those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or
+gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you
+might see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane. It was very
+singular.
+
+He walked much alone after dark. The _guichinangoes_ (garroters, we
+might say), at those times the city's particular terror by night, never
+crossed his path. He was one of those men for whom danger appears to
+stand aside.
+
+One beautiful summer night, when all nature seemed hushed in ecstasy,
+the last blush gone that told of the sun's parting, Monsieur
+Vignevielle, in the course of one of those contemplative, uncompanioned
+walks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more open
+portion of the Rue Royale, with a step which was soft without intention,
+occasionally touching the end of his stout cane gently to the ground and
+looking upward among his old acquaintances, the stars.
+
+It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the sterner
+energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and the
+fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters and
+escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush and
+sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by
+the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still
+again, as if the breezes lifted their expectant pinions and lowered them
+once more, awaiting the rising of the moon in a silence which fell upon
+the fields, the roads, the gardens, the walls, and the suburban and
+half-suburban streets, like a pause in worship. And anon she rose.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part of
+the town, and he was presently passing along a high, close, board-fence,
+on the right-hand side of the way, when, just within this inclosure, and
+almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a
+mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. It
+may have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted the
+passer's attention, but he paused and looked up.
+
+And then he remarked something more,--that the air where he had stopped
+was filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. He
+looked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate just
+there. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about it
+in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An
+iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the
+gate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing
+business--an eye which had later received high training as an eye for
+fastenings--fell upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the wood
+had shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though without
+falling out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand
+upon the cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was
+drawn partly open.
+
+At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or
+gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of
+whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had
+met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of
+destruction.
+
+The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within the
+opening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, a
+broad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-trees
+and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell,
+the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds
+stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There,
+very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had
+tempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned
+from him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the
+right, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely
+a door of the house might open upon it. While he still looked, there
+fell upon his ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on the
+broken shells,--one only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had
+he mistaken? No. The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale
+glimpse of robes came through the tangle, and then, plainly to view,
+appeared an outline--a presence--a form--a spirit--a girl!
+
+From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
+medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
+waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
+heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
+a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
+temples,--her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down to
+guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
+grass,--straight down the path she came!
+
+Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
+deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
+vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
+the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
+tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _Can it be?_ Is this
+his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to M. Vignevielle the
+unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is
+now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will
+shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do
+that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck
+and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mocking-bird cannot
+withhold; he breaks into song--she turns--she turns her face--it is she,
+it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+OLIVE.
+
+
+She was just passing seventeen--that beautiful year when the heart of
+the maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,
+while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation of
+womanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair were
+fair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,
+lacklustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,
+no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face that
+seemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for the
+large, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingled
+dreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color of
+shell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which took
+its place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.
+
+This side door-way which led from Madame Delphine's house into her
+garden was overarched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice,
+and partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned
+a rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when the
+twilights were balmy or the moon was bright.
+
+"_Chérie_," said Madame Delphine on one of these evenings, "why do you
+dream so much?"
+
+She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughter
+had easily learned.
+
+The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped her
+glance to the hands in her own lap, which were listlessly handling the
+end of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Her
+dress was white again; this was but one night since that in which
+Monsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He had
+not been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leaving
+it as he had found it.
+
+Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in the
+moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste
+drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was
+again laying aside to re-assume the mediæval bondage of the stay-lace;
+for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine
+and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,
+of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her
+hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle
+admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.
+
+Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, and
+on that account repeated her question:
+
+"What are you thinking about?"
+
+The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,
+bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.
+
+The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the silence which followed, a
+daughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, and
+Olive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:
+
+"I was thinking of Père Jerome's sermon."
+
+Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the day
+it was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever
+afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of
+secondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon.
+
+Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own;
+but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question:
+
+"Do you think, _maman_, that Père Jerome knows it was I who gave that
+missal?"
+
+"No," said Madame Delphine, "I am sure he does not."
+
+Another question came more timidly:
+
+"Do--do you think he knows _him_?"
+
+"Yes, I do. He said in his sermon he did."
+
+Both remained for a long time very still, watching the moon gliding in
+and through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughter
+spoke again.
+
+"I wish I was Père--I wish I was as good as Père Jerome."
+
+"My child," said Madame Delphine, her tone betraying a painful summoning
+of strength to say what she had lacked the courage to utter,--"my child,
+I pray the good God you will not let your heart go after one whom you
+may never see in this world!"
+
+The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her arms
+about her mother's neck, laid her cheek upon it for a moment, and then,
+feeling the maternal tear, lifted her lips, and, kissing her, said:
+
+"I will not! I will not!"
+
+But the voice was one, not of willing consent, but of desperate
+resolution.
+
+"It would be useless, anyhow," said the mother, laying her arm around
+her daughter's waist.
+
+Olive repeated the kiss, prolonging it passionately.
+
+"I have nobody but you," murmured the girl; "I am a poor quadroone!"
+
+She threw back her plaited hair for a third embrace, when a sound in the
+shrubbery startled them.
+
+"_Qui ci ça?_" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as the two
+stood up, holding to each other.
+
+No answer.
+
+"It was only the dropping of a twig," she whispered, after a long
+holding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred it
+everywhere.
+
+It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course of
+time, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, and
+fearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BIRDS.
+
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle looked in at no more doors or windows; but if the
+disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to
+notice which were especially bad,--for instance, wakefulness. At
+well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not
+patrol singly, would meet him on his slow, unmolested, sky-gazing walk.
+
+"Seems to enjoy it," said Jean Thompson; "the worst sort of evidence. If
+he showed distress of mind, it would not be so bad; but his
+calmness,--ugly feature."
+
+The attorney had held his ground so long that he began really to believe
+it was tenable.
+
+By day, it is true, Monsieur Vignevielle was at his post in his quiet
+"bank." Yet here, day by day, he was the source of more and more vivid
+astonishment to those who held preconceived notions of a banker's
+calling. As a banker, at least, he was certainly out of balance; while
+as a promenader, it seemed to those who watched him that his ruling idea
+had now veered about, and that of late he was ever on the quiet alert,
+not to find, but to evade, somebody.
+
+"Olive, my child," whispered Madame Delphine one morning, as the pair
+were kneeling side by side on the tiled floor of the church, "yonder is
+Miché Vignevielle! If you will only look at once--he is just passing a
+little in----. Ah, much too slow again; he stepped out by the side
+door."
+
+The mother thought it a strange providence that Monsieur Vignevielle
+should always be disappearing whenever Olive was with her.
+
+One early dawn, Madame Delphine, with a small empty basket on her arm,
+stepped out upon the _banquette_ in front of her house, shut and
+fastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence you
+could faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the songs of the
+Gascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of the
+distant market-house. She was going to see if she could find some birds
+for Olive,--the child's appetite was so poor; and, as she was out, she
+would drop an early prayer at the cathedral. Faith and works.
+
+"One must venture something, sometimes, in the cause of religion,"
+thought she, as she started timorously on her way. But she had not gone
+a dozen steps before she repented her temerity. There was some one
+behind her.
+
+There should not be anything terrible in a footstep merely because it is
+masculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider that.
+A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had found a
+shoe-track in the garden. She had not disclosed the discovery to Olive,
+but she had hardly closed her eyes the whole night.
+
+The step behind her now might be the fall of that very shoe. She
+quickened her pace, but did not leave the sound behind. She hurried
+forward almost at a run; yet it was still there--no farther, no nearer.
+Two frights were upon her at once--one for herself, another for Olive,
+left alone in the house; but she had but the one prayer--"God protect my
+child!" After a fearful time she reached a place of safety, the
+cathedral. There, panting, she knelt long enough to know the pursuit
+was, at least, suspended, and then arose, hoping and praying all the
+saints that she might find the way clear for her return in all haste to
+Olive.
+
+She approached a different door from that by which she had entered, her
+eyes in all directions and her heart in her throat.
+
+"Madame Carraze."
+
+She started wildly and almost screamed, though the voice was soft and
+mild. Monsieur Vignevielle came slowly forward from the shade of the
+wall. They met beside a bench, upon which she dropped her basket.
+
+"Ah, Miché Vignevielle, I thang de good God to mid you!"
+
+"Is dad so, Madame Carraze? Fo' w'y dad is?"
+
+"A man was chase me all dad way since my 'ouse!"
+
+"Yes, Madame, I sawed him."
+
+"You sawed 'im? Oo it was?"
+
+"'Twas only one man wad is a foolizh. De people say he's crezzie.
+_Mais_, he don' goin' to meg you no 'arm."
+
+"But I was scare' fo' my lill' girl."
+
+"Noboddie don' goin' trouble you' lill' gal, Madame Carraze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked up into the speaker's strangely kind and patient
+eyes, and drew sweet re-assurance from them.
+
+"Madame," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "wad pud you hout so hearly dis
+morning?"
+
+She told him her errand. She asked if he thought she would find
+anything.
+
+"Yez," he said, "it was possible--a few lill' _bécassines-de-mer_, ou
+somezin' ligue. But fo' w'y you lill' gal lose doze hapetide?"
+
+"Ah, Miché,"--Madame Delphine might have tried a thousand times again
+without ever succeeding half so well in lifting the curtain upon the
+whole, sweet, tender, old, old-fashioned truth,--"Ah, Miché, she wone
+tell me!"
+
+"Bud, anny'ow, Madame, wad you thing?"
+
+"Miché," she replied, looking up again with a tear standing in either
+eye, and then looking down once more as she began to speak, "I thing--I
+thing she's lonesome."
+
+"You thing?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Ah! Madame Carraze," he said, partly extending his hand, "you see? 'Tis
+impossible to mague you' owze shud so tighd to priv-en dad. Madame, I
+med one mizteg."
+
+"Ah, _non_, Miché!"
+
+"Yez. There har nod one poss'bil'ty fo' me to be dad guardian of you'
+daughteh!"
+
+Madame Delphine started with surprise and alarm.
+
+"There is ondly one wad can be," he continued.
+
+"But oo, Miché?"
+
+"God."
+
+"Ah, Miché Vignevielle----" She looked at him appealingly.
+
+"I don' goin' to dizzerd you, Madame Carraze," he said.
+
+She lifted her eyes. They filled. She shook her head, a tear fell, she
+bit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, sat
+down upon the bench and wept until she shook.
+
+"You dunno wad I mean, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She did not know.
+
+"I mean dad guardian of you' daughteh godd to fine 'er now one 'uzban';
+an' noboddie are hable to do dad egceb de good God 'imsev. But, Madame,
+I tell you wad I do."
+
+She rose up. He continued:
+
+"Go h-open you' owze; I fin' you' daughteh dad' uzban'."
+
+Madame Delphine was a helpless, timid thing; but her eyes showed she was
+about to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand--it
+touched her shoulder--and said, kindly still, and without eagerness.
+
+"One w'ite man, Madame; 'tis prattycabble. I _know_ 'tis prattycabble.
+One w'ite jantleman, Madame. You can truz me. I goin' fedge 'im.
+H-ondly you go h-open you' owze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked down, twining her handkerchief among her fingers.
+
+He repeated his proposition.
+
+"You will come firz by you'se'f?" she asked.
+
+"Iv you wand."
+
+She lifted up once more her eye of faith. That was her answer.
+
+"Come," he said, gently, "I wan' sen' some bird ad you' lill' gal."
+
+And they went away, Madame Delphine's spirit grown so exaltedly bold
+that she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle, I thing Père Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell you
+someboddie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+FACE TO FACE.
+
+
+Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.
+
+"_Ah! ma piti sans popa_! Ah! my little fatherless one!" Her faded
+bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and
+her dropped basket, with its "few lill' _bécassines-de-mer_" dangling
+from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Ma
+piti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"
+
+"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or
+fifth time.
+
+"_Dieu sait, ma c'ère; mo pas conné!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannot
+tell!
+
+The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and
+burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept
+afresh.
+
+"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,
+fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's
+bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"
+
+"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing--I am such a fool."
+
+The girl's eyes filled. The mother looked up into her face and said:
+
+"No, it is nothing, nothing, only that--" turning her head from side to
+side with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Miché Vignevielle is the
+best--_best_ man on the good Lord's earth!"
+
+Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the little
+yellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes.
+Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of telling
+something:
+
+"He sent you those birds!"
+
+The girl drew her face back a little. The little woman turned away,
+trying in vain to hide her tearful smile, and they laughed together,
+Olive mingling a daughter's fond kiss with her laughter.
+
+"There is something else," she said, "and you shall tell me."
+
+"Yes," replied Madame Delphine, "only let me get composed."
+
+But she did not get so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with the
+timid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could to
+brighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified and
+troubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's spirits rose.
+
+The work began, and presently ensued all the thumping, the trundling,
+the lifting and letting down, the raising and swallowing of dust, and
+the smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go to
+characterize a housekeeper's _émeute_; and still, as the work
+progressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little black
+eyes sparkled.
+
+"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever coming
+to see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last sat
+down, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire.
+
+Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. She
+rose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door that
+opened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticed
+bower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There was
+an agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealing
+tone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between her
+palms, she said:
+
+"_Ah! ma mère, qui vini 'ci ce soir?_"--Who is coming here this evening?
+
+"Why, my dear child, I was just saying, we like a clean----"
+
+But the daughter was desperate:
+
+"Oh, tell me, my mother, _who_ is coming?"
+
+"My darling, it is our blessed friend, Miché Vignevielle!"
+
+"To see me?" cried the girl.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, my mother, what have you done?"
+
+"Why, Olive, my child," exclaimed the little mother, bursting into
+tears, "do you forget it is Miché Vignevielle who has promised to
+protect you when I die?"
+
+The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced around
+again, and extending her arms toward her mother, cried:
+
+"How can--he is a white man--I am a poor----"
+
+"Ah! _chérie_" replied Madame Delphine, seizing the outstretched hands,
+"it is there--it is there that he shows himself the best man alive! He
+sees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you a
+suitor!"
+
+Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stood
+proudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but the
+next moment she had uttered a cry, and was sobbing on the floor.
+
+The mother knelt beside her and threw an arm about her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, my sweet daughter, you must not cry! I did not want to tell you at
+all! I did not want to tell you! It isn't fair for you to cry so hard.
+Miché Vignevielle says you shall have the one you wish, or none at all,
+Olive, or none at all."
+
+"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"
+
+"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with him
+to-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."
+
+Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went alone
+to their chamber in the half-story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window to
+door, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemed
+dismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. How
+she had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! A
+little beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, with
+her eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline was
+undistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening.
+
+She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, an
+approaching step on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stood
+still. She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoe
+grated softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating
+in great thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low,
+and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle!"
+
+He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which we
+have noticed. She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened,
+with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp. But her
+hands paused in their work again,--Olive's step was on the stairs; then
+it came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there was
+the whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowy
+figure in the door. She was dressed for the evening.
+
+"Maman?"
+
+Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at that
+moment it responded with a tiny bead of light.
+
+"I am here, my daughter."
+
+She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence,
+lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoring
+her effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystal
+of the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side;
+the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of the
+room came back into shape.
+
+"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.
+
+"It is Miché Vignevielle, my daughter----"
+
+The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, a
+dark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expanding
+to the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face of
+Capitaine Lemaitre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE MOTHER BIRD.
+
+
+One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called on
+Madame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and had
+hardly left the gate of his cottage, when a person, overtaking him,
+plucked his gown:
+
+"Père Jerome----"
+
+He turned.
+
+The face that met his was so changed with excitement and distress that
+for an instant he did not recognize it.
+
+"Why, Madame Delphine----"
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! _Mo oulé dit
+quiç'ose_,--I godd some' to tell you."
+
+The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed to
+think.
+
+"We had better go back to my parlor," said the priest, in their native
+tongue.
+
+They returned.
+
+Madame Delphine's very step was altered,--nervous and inelastic. She
+swung one arm as she walked, and brandished a turkey-tail fan.
+
+"I was glad, yass, to kedge you," she said, as they mounted the front,
+outdoor stair; following her speech with a slight, unmusical laugh, and
+fanning herself with unconscious fury.
+
+"_Fé chaud_," she remarked again, taking the chair he offered and
+continuing to ply the fan.
+
+Père Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her,
+and said, as he wiped his kindly face:
+
+"Well, Madame Carraze?"
+
+Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan to
+her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.
+
+"Père Jerome----" She gnawed her lip
+and shook her head.
+
+"Well?"
+
+She burst into tears.
+
+The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did it
+slowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face
+with sudden energy, and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twas
+me! 'Twas me!"
+
+The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly
+turned away her face. Père Jerome waited a little before replying; then
+he said, very gently:
+
+"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"
+
+The little father felt a wish--one which he often had when weeping women
+were before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to
+press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would
+not let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments more
+to pass, and then asked:
+
+"_N'est-ce-pas_, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, aint it?"
+
+"No, Père Jerome, no. My daughter--oh, Père Jerome, I bethroath my lill'
+girl--to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commenced
+savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling
+hand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."
+
+On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:
+
+"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,
+"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yass, 'tis tru'."
+
+He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the
+Creole dialect:
+
+"Is he a good man--without doubt?"
+
+"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous
+smile.
+
+"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being
+deceived by somebody."
+
+There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and
+smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:
+
+"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miché! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"
+
+Père Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his
+back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.
+
+"He _is_ a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At
+length he halted before the woman.
+
+"Madame Delphine----"
+
+The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was
+lifted to his eyes.
+
+"Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."
+
+"_Qui ci ça?_ What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.
+
+"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."
+
+"Ah, Père Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and
+putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,
+suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_I
+wizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,
+trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking her
+head, "'tis not Miché Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with
+sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is a
+fool!"
+
+A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--the
+law; but Père Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very
+response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:
+
+"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I
+help you?"
+
+A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained a
+piteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:
+
+"_Mais, pou'quoi yé fé cette méchanique là?_"--What business had they to
+make that contraption?
+
+His answer was a shrug with his palms extended and a short, disclamatory
+"Ah." He started to resume his walk, but turned to her again and said:
+
+"Why did they make that law? Well, they made it to keep the two races
+separate."
+
+Madame Delphine startled the speaker with a loud, harsh, angry laugh.
+Fire came from her eyes and her lip curled with scorn.
+
+"Then they made a lie, Père Jerome! Separate! No-o-o! They do not want
+to keep us separated; no, no! But they _do_ want to keep us despised!"
+She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward with physical
+pain. "But, very well! from which race do they want to keep my
+daughter separate? She is seven parts white! The law did not stop
+her from being that; and now, when she wants to be a white man's
+good and honest wife, shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" She rose
+up. "No; I will tell you what that law is made for. It is made
+to--punish--my--child--for--not--choosing--her--father! Père Jerome--my
+God, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in a
+flood, which she made no attempt to restrain.
+
+"No," she began again--and here she broke into English--"fo' me I don'
+kyare; but, Père Jerome,--'tis fo' dat I come to tell you,--dey _shall
+not_ punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heaving
+bosom with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"
+
+Père Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motion
+of the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly with
+the ends of his fingers.
+
+"Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome. Go at 'ome."
+
+"Wad you goin' mague?" she asked.
+
+"Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don' put you'se'f sig. I goin' see
+Ursin. We trah to figs dat law fo' you."
+
+"You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy.
+
+"We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!"
+
+He offered his hand. She seized and kissed it thrice, covering it with
+tears, at the same time lifting up her eyes to his and murmuring:
+
+"De bez man God evva mague!"
+
+At the door she turned to offer a more conventional good-bye; but he was
+following her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, and
+then parted with a simple adieu, she going home and he returning for
+his hat, and starting again upon his interrupted business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings of
+Monsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in.
+
+"Indeed," the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return for
+some days or weeks."
+
+So Père Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward the
+residence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employés.
+
+"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, as
+far as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Everything is in
+another name." And then he whispered:
+
+"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from some
+of the prisoners taken months ago by the United States brig _Porpoise_.
+But"--a still softer whisper--"have no fear; they will never find him:
+Jean Thompson and Evariste Varrillat have hid him away too well for
+that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+TRIBULATION.
+
+
+The Saturday following was a very beautiful day. In the morning a light
+fall of rain had passed across the town, and all the afternoon you could
+see signs, here and there upon the horizon, of other showers. The ground
+was dry again, while the breeze was cool and sweet, smelling of wet
+foliage and bringing sunshine and shade in frequent and very pleasing
+alternation.
+
+There was a walk in Père Jerome's little garden, of which we have not
+spoken, off on the right side of the cottage, with his chamber window at
+one end, a few old and twisted, but blossom-laden, crape-myrtles on
+either hand, now and then a rose of some unpretending variety and some
+bunches of rue, and at the other end a shrine, in whose blue niche
+stood a small figure of Mary, with folded hands and uplifted eyes. No
+other window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a
+great comfort to Père Jerome.
+
+Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest
+was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting
+in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was
+thinking of Ursin. The officers of the Government had not found him, nor
+had Père Jerome seen him; yet he believed they had, in a certain
+indirect way, devised a simple project by which they could at any time
+"figs dad law," providing only that these Government officials would
+give over their search; for, though he had not seen the fugitive, Madame
+Delphine had seen him, and had been the vehicle of communication between
+them. There was an orange-tree, where a mocking-bird was wont to sing
+and a girl in white to walk, that the detectives wot not of. The law was
+to be "figs" by the departure of the three frequenters of the
+jasmine-scented garden in one ship to France, where the law offered no
+obstacles.
+
+It seemed moderately certain to those in search of Monsieur Vignevielle
+(and it was true) that Jean and Evariste were his harborers; but for all
+that the hunt, even for clues, was vain. The little banking
+establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the
+searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as
+well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the
+same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for his
+personal discovery.
+
+Père Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, pondering
+these matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk furthest
+from his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, he
+beheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, and
+knew instantly that it was Olive.
+
+She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness.
+
+"I came to confession," she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement in
+her eyes shining through her veil, "but I find I am too late."
+
+"There is no too late or too early for that; I am always ready," said
+the priest. "But how is your mother?"
+
+"Ah!----"
+
+Her voice failed.
+
+"More trouble?"
+
+"Ah, sir, I have _made_ trouble. Oh, Père Jerome, I am bringing so much
+trouble upon my poor mother!"
+
+Père Jerome moved slowly toward the house, with his eyes cast down, the
+veiled girl at his side.
+
+"It is not your fault," he presently said. And after another pause: "I
+thought it was all arranged."
+
+He looked up and could see, even through the veil, her crimson blush.
+
+"Oh, no," she replied, in a low, despairing voice, dropping her face.
+
+"What is the difficulty?" asked the priest, stopping in the angle of the
+path, where it turned toward the front of the house.
+
+She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from a
+crape-myrtle.
+
+"Madame Thompson and her husband were at our house this morning. _He_
+had told Monsieur Thompson all about it. They were very kind to me at
+first, but they tried----" She was weeping.
+
+"What did they try to do?" asked the priest.
+
+"They tried to make me believe he is insane."
+
+She succeeded in passing her handkerchief up under her veil.
+
+"And I suppose then your poor mother grew angry, eh?"
+
+"Yes; and they became much more so, and said if we did not write, or
+send a writing, to _him_, within twenty-four hours, breaking the----"
+
+"Engagement," said Père Jerome.
+
+"They would give him up to the Government. Oh, Père Jerome, what shall I
+do? It is killing my mother!"
+
+She bowed her head and sobbed.
+
+"Where is your mother now?"
+
+"She has gone to see Monsieur Jean Thompson. She says she has a plan
+that will match them all. I do not know what it is. I begged her not to
+go; but oh, sir, _she is_ crazy,--and--I am no better."
+
+"My poor child," said Père Jerome, "what you seem to want is not
+absolution, but relief from persecution."
+
+"Oh, father, I have committed mortal sin,--I am guilty of pride and
+anger."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the priest, starting toward his front gate, "we
+will put off your confession. Let it go until to-morrow morning; you
+will find me in my box just before mass; I will hear you then. My child,
+I know that in your heart, now, you begrudge the time it would take; and
+that is right. There are moments when we are not in place even on
+penitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother. Go
+you at once to your house; if she is there, comfort her as best you can,
+and _keep her in, if possible_, until I come. If she is not there, stay;
+leave me to find her; one of you, at least, must be where I can get
+word to you promptly. God comfort and uphold you. I hope you may find
+her at home; tell her, for me, not to fear,"--he lifted the
+gate-latch,--"that she and her daughter are of more value than many
+sparrows; that God's priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her to
+fix her trust in the great Husband of the Church, and she shall yet see
+her child receiving the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; I
+shall, in a few minutes, be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall find
+her, either there or wherever she is. Go; they shall not oppress you.
+Adieu!"
+
+A moment or two later he was in the street himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+BY AN OATH.
+
+
+Père Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight,
+had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start
+again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked,
+so suddenly as to startle him:
+
+"_Miché, commin yé 'pellé la rie ici?_--how do they call this street
+here?"
+
+It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than
+by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized
+the woman to whom he replied in her own _patois_:
+
+"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"
+
+She almost leaped from the ground.
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome! _mo pas conné_,--I dunno. You know w'ere's dad 'ouse
+of Michè Jean Tomkin? _Mo courri 'ci, mo courri là,--mo pas capale li
+trouvé_. I go (run) here--there--I cannot find it," she gesticulated.
+
+"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean
+Thompson, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I '_blige_' to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away,
+one foot planted forward with an air of excited preoccupation; "I god
+some' to tell 'im wad I '_blige_' to tell 'im!"
+
+"Madame Delphine----"
+
+"Oh! Père Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de
+'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"
+
+Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.
+
+"What are you going to tell him?" asked the priest.
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome,"--in the Creole _patois_ again,--"I am going to put an
+end to all this trouble--only I pray you do not ask me about it now;
+every minute is precious!"
+
+He could not withstand her look of entreaty.
+
+"Come," he said, and they went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the
+Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Each
+had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the
+magnolias,--his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly
+shaded garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall,
+brick-pillared gate, his square of bright, red pavement on the
+turf-covered sidewalk, and his railed platform spanning the
+draining-ditch, with a pair of green benches, one on each edge, facing
+each other crosswise of the gutter. There, any sunset hour, you were
+sure to find the householder sitting beside his cool-robed matron, two
+or three slave nurses in white turbans standing at hand, and an excited
+throng of fair children, nearly all of a size.
+
+Sometimes, at a beckon or call, the parents on one side of the way would
+join those on the other, and the children and nurses of both families
+would be given the liberty of the opposite platform and an ice-cream
+fund! Generally the parents chose the Thompson platform, its outlook
+being more toward the sunset.
+
+Such happened to be the arrangement this afternoon. The two husbands sat
+on one bench and their wives on the other, both pairs very quiet,
+waiting respectfully for the day to die, and exchanging only occasional
+comments on matters of light moment as they passed through the memory.
+During one term of silence Madame Varrillat, a pale, thin-faced, but
+cheerful-looking lady, touched Madame Thompson, a person of two and a
+half times her weight, on her extensive and snowy bare elbow, directing
+her attention obliquely up and across the road.
+
+About a hundred yards distant, in the direction of the river, was a
+long, pleasantly shaded green strip of turf, destined in time for a
+sidewalk. It had a deep ditch on the nearer side, and a fence of rough
+cypress palisades on the farther, and these were overhung, on the one
+hand, by a row of bitter orange-trees inside the inclosure, and, on the
+other, by a line of slanting china-trees along the outer edge of the
+ditch. Down this cool avenue two figures were approaching side by side.
+They had first attracted Madame Varrillat's notice by the bright play of
+sunbeams which, as they walked, fell upon them in soft, golden flashes
+through the chinks between the palisades.
+
+Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from
+her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitering
+general:
+
+"_Père Jerome et cette milatraise_."
+
+All eyes were bent toward them.
+
+"She walks like a man," said Madame Varrillat, in the language with
+which the conversation had opened.
+
+"No," said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervous
+excitement."
+
+Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:
+
+"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of
+Louisiana,"--as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed.
+Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose applause he prized, and she
+answered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back and
+contriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded. Her laugh was
+musical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up and
+down.
+
+"Père Jerome is talking to her," said one. The priest was at that moment
+endeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the four
+people who sat watching his approach. It was in the old strain:
+
+"Blame them one part, Madame Delphine, and their fathers, mothers,
+brothers, and fellow-citizens the other ninety-nine."
+
+But to everything she had the one amiable answer which Père Jerome
+ignored:
+
+"I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. _Tout à
+fait_."
+
+"They are coming here," said Madame Varrillat, half articulately.
+
+"Well, of course," murmured another; and the four rose up, smiling
+courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with
+the priest.
+
+No--Père Jerome thanked them--he could not sit down.
+
+"This, I believe you know, Jean, is Madame Delphine----"
+
+The quadroone curtsied.
+
+"A friend of mine," he added, smiling kindly upon her, and turning, with
+something imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has an
+important private matter to communicate."
+
+"To me?" asked Jean Thompson.
+
+"To all of you; so I will---- Good-evening." He responded nothing to the
+expressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine. She murmured
+something.
+
+"Ah! yes, certainly." He addressed the company: "She wishes me to speak
+for her veracity; it is unimpeachable. "Well, good-evening." He shook
+hands and departed.
+
+The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standing
+figure.
+
+"Have you something to say to us?" asked Jean Thompson, frowning at her
+law-defying bonnet.
+
+"_Oui_," replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of
+one of the benches, "_mo oulé di' tou' ç'ose_"--I want to tell
+everything. "_Miché Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune_"--the best
+man in the world; "_mo pas capabe li fé tracas_"--I cannot give him
+trouble. "_Mo pas capabe, non; m'olé di' tous ç'ose_." She attempted to
+fan herself, her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested
+on the ground.
+
+"Take a seat," said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, starting
+from his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner of
+the bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two races
+could not both sit down at once--at least not in that public manner.
+
+"Your salts," said the physician to his wife. She handed the vial.
+Madame Delphine stood up again.
+
+"We will all go inside," said Madame Thompson, and they passed through
+the gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cool
+drawing-room.
+
+Madame Thompson herself bade the quadroone be seated.
+
+"Well?" said Jean Thompson, as the rest took chairs.
+
+"_C'est drole_"--it's funny--said Madame Delphine, with a piteous effort
+to smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only to
+look and see. I mean about Olive." She loosed a button in the front of
+her dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herself
+never thought of it. She does not know a word."
+
+The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it to
+Jean Thompson.
+
+"_Ouala so popa_" said Madame Delphine. "That is her father."
+
+It went from one to another, exciting admiration and murmured praise.
+
+"She is the image of him," said Madame Thompson, in an austere
+under-tone, returning it to her husband.
+
+Doctor Varrillat was watching Madame Delphine. She was very pale. She
+had passed a trembling hand into a pocket of her skirt, and now drew
+out another picture, in a case the counterpart of the first. He reached
+out for it, and she handed it to him. He looked at it a moment, when his
+eyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney.
+
+"_Et là_"--Madame Delphine's utterance failed--"_et là, ouala sa
+moman_." (That is her mother.)
+
+The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. They
+were much impressed.
+
+"It is true beyond a doubt!" muttered Madame Thompson.
+
+Madame Varrillat looked at her with astonishment.
+
+"The proof is right there in the faces," said Madame Thompson.
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Madame Delphine, excitedly; "the proof is there! You do
+not want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no better
+proof! That is all anybody could want! My God! you cannot help but see
+it!"
+
+Her manner was wild.
+
+Jean Thompson looked at her sternly.
+
+"Nevertheless you say you are willing to take your solemn oath to this."
+
+"Certainly----"
+
+"You will have to do it."
+
+"Certainly, Miché Thompson, _of course_ I shall; you will make out the
+paper and I will swear before God that it is true! Only"--turning to the
+ladies--"do not tell Olive; she will never believe it. It will break her
+heart! It----"
+
+A servant came and spoke privately to Madame Thompson, who rose quickly
+and went to the hall. Madame Delphine continued, rising unconsciously:
+
+"You see, I have had her with me from a baby. She knows no better. He
+brought her to me only two months old. Her mother had died in the ship,
+coming out here. He did not come straight from home here. His people
+never knew he was married!"
+
+The speaker looked around suddenly with a startled glance. There was a
+noise of excited speaking in the hall.
+
+"It is not true, Madame Thompson!" cried a girl's voice.
+
+Madame Delphine's look became one of wildest distress and alarm, and she
+opened her lips in a vain attempt to utter some request, when Olive
+appeared a moment in the door, and then flew into her arms.
+
+"My mother! my mother! my mother!"
+
+Madame Thompson, with tears in her eyes, tenderly drew them apart and
+let Madame Delphine down into her chair, while Olive threw herself upon
+her knees, continuing to cry:
+
+"Oh, my mother! Say you are my mother!"
+
+Madame Delphine looked an instant into the upturned face, and then
+turned her own away, with a long, low cry of pain, looked again, and
+laying both hands upon the suppliant's head, said:
+
+"_Oh, chère piti à moin, to pa' ma fie!_" (Oh, my darling little one,
+you are not my daughter!) Her eyes closed, and her head sank back; the
+two gentlemen sprang to her assistance, and laid her upon a sofa
+unconscious.
+
+When they brought her to herself, Olive was kneeling at her head
+silently weeping.
+
+"_Maman, chère maman_!" said the girl softly, kissing her lips.
+
+"_Ma courri c'ez moin_" (I will go home), said the mother, drearily.
+
+"You will go home with me," said Madame Varrillat, with great kindness
+of manner--"just across the street here; I will take care of you till
+you feel better. And Olive will stay here with Madame Thompson. You will
+be only the width of the street apart."
+
+But Madame Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she would
+not allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two to
+sleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she would
+accept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of her
+kinspeople--man and wife--to come and make their dwelling with her.
+
+In course of time these two--a poor, timid, helpless, pair--fell heir to
+the premises. Their children had it after them; but, whether in those
+hands or these, the house had its habits and continued in them; and to
+this day the neighbors, as has already been said, rightly explain its
+close-sealed, uninhabited look by the all-sufficient statement that the
+inmates "is quadroons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+KYRIE ELEISON.
+
+
+The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
+burning before the tabernacle in Père Jerome's little church might have
+hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
+Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
+completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
+in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
+with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
+which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
+confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
+rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
+entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
+of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence
+that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
+would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
+and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.
+
+The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;
+then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some
+projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house
+of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and
+re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The
+search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would
+tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and
+belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an
+unexceptionable eyewitness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)
+Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding
+in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Père Jerome's vision
+now--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of
+man, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and
+feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome
+eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots
+of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean
+Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his
+tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one
+expression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinking
+female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She
+sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the
+small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted
+face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the
+recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,
+nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired
+priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of
+invitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come to
+confession this afternoon."
+
+By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any
+glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from
+station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly
+going the way of the cross. Yet Père Jerome tarried.
+
+"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would
+come."
+
+A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a
+subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt
+noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,
+in the voice he had waited to hear:
+
+"_Bénissez-moin, mo' Père, pa'ce que mo péché_." (Bless me, father, for
+I have sinned.)
+
+He gave his blessing.
+
+"_Ainsi soit-il_--Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft
+accents of the Creole _patois_, continued:
+
+"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to
+blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
+Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned
+exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through my
+fault, through my most grievous fault_.' I confessed on Saturday, three
+weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance
+enjoined. Since then----" There she stopped.
+
+There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she
+rose up again, and in a moment she said:
+
+"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the
+half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She
+is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh Olive, my
+own daughter!"
+
+She ceased, and was still. Père Jerome waited, but no sound came. He
+looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting
+on her arms--motionless.
+
+He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.
+
+"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not
+move.
+
+He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and
+called her by name:
+
+"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there
+was life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed from
+his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to
+heaven and cried:
+
+"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Madame Delphine
+
+Author: George W. Cable
+
+Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19703]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAME DELPHINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
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+
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+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>MADAME DELPHINE</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>GEORGE W. CABLE</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Author of "Old Creole Days," "The Grandissimes," etc.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">
+NEW YORK<br />
+<span class="smcap">Copyright</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br />
+743 AND 745 <span class="smcap">Broadway</span><br />
+1881<br />
+PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE &amp; CO.,<br />
+NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table summary="contents" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5">
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">An Old House</span> </td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">Page</span> 1</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Madame Delphine</span> </td><td align="right">7</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Capitaine Lemaitre</span> </td><td align="right">12</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Three Friends</span> </td><td align="right">18</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Cap Fits</span> </td><td align="right">28</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Cry of Distress</span> </td><td align="right">40</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mich&eacute; Vignevielle</span> </td><td align="right">50</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">She</span> </td><td align="right">59</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Olive</span> </td><td align="right">68</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Birds</span> </td><td align="right">74</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Face To Face</span> </td><td align="right">82</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Mother Bird</span> </td><td align="right">90</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Tribulation</span> </td><td align="right">99</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">By an Oath</span> </td><td align="right">106</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Kyrie Eleison</span> </td><td align="right">120</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="MADAME_DELPHINE" id="MADAME_DELPHINE"></a>MADAME DELPHINE.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER I.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>AN OLD HOUSE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to
+and across Canal street, the central avenue of the city, and to that
+corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the
+arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant
+merchandise. The crowd&mdash;and if it is near the time of the carnival it
+will be great&mdash;will follow Canal street.</p>
+
+<p>But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of
+Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to
+call the Rue Royale. You will pass a few restaurants, a few auction
+rooms, a few furniture warehouses, and will hardly realize that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+have left behind you the activity and clatter of a city of merchants
+before you find yourself in a region of architectural decrepitude, where
+an ancient and foreign-seeming domestic life, in second stories,
+overhangs the ruins of a former commercial prosperity, and upon
+everything has settled down a long Sabbath of decay. The vehicles in the
+street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are
+shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright
+mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great
+doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street
+windows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten,
+and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the older
+Franco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick betray a squalor almost oriental.</p>
+
+<p>Yet beauty lingers here. To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes
+you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched
+wicket in some <i>porte-coch&egrave;re</i>&mdash;red-painted brick pavement, foliage of
+dark palm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming
+parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten
+window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a
+glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and much
+similar rich antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street
+a sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are putting
+you off your guard, there will pass you a woman&mdash;more likely two or
+three&mdash;of patrician beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if you will go far enough down this old street, you will see, as
+you approach its intersection with&mdash;&mdash;. Names in that region elude one
+like ghosts.</p>
+
+<p>However, as you begin to find the way a trifle more open, you will not
+fail to notice on the right-hand side, about midway of the square, a
+small, low, brick house of a story and a half, set out upon the
+sidewalk, as weather-beaten and mute as an aged beggar fallen asleep.
+Its corrugated roof of dull red tiles,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> sloping down toward you with an
+inward curve, is overgrown with weeds, and in the fall of the year is
+gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with
+your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten
+shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are
+shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated.
+Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the
+house has the lock-jaw. There are two doors, and to each a single
+chipped and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a
+line with the house, is a garden masked from view by a high, close
+board-fence. You may see the tops of its fruit-trees&mdash;pomegranate,
+peach, banana, fig, pear, and particularly one large orange, close by
+the fence, that must be very old.</p>
+
+<p>The residents over the narrow way, who live in a three-story house,
+originally of much pretension, but from whose front door hard times have
+removed almost all vestiges of paint, will tell you:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yass, de 'ouse is in'abit; 'tis live in."</p>
+
+<p>And this is likely to be all the information you get&mdash;not that they
+would not tell, but they cannot grasp the idea that you wish to
+know&mdash;until, possibly, just as you are turning to depart, your
+informant, in a single word and with the most evident non-appreciation
+of its value, drops the simple key to the whole matter:</p>
+
+<p>"Dey's quadroons."</p>
+
+<p>He may then be aroused to mention the better appearance of the place in
+former years, when the houses of this region generally stood farther
+apart, and that garden comprised the whole square.</p>
+
+<p>Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as she
+was commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. That
+she owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceased
+companion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as to
+be, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject of
+gossip. She was never pointed out by the deni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>zens of the quarter as a
+character, nor her house as a "feature." It would have passed all Creole
+powers of guessing to divine what you could find worthy of inquiry
+concerning a retired quadroon woman; and not the least puzzled of all
+would have been the timid and restive Madame Delphine herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER II.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>MADAME DELPHINE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon caste
+of New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations&mdash;sprung, upon
+the one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial military
+service which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-American
+frontier life, and, upon the other hand, from comely Ethiopians culled
+out of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at the
+ship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still in
+their head-dresses,&mdash;these earlier generations, with scars of battle or
+private rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on the
+manumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was to
+result from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devoted
+to the elimi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>nation of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperian
+excellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to the
+present, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the <i>gens de
+couleur</i> whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with
+"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing of
+toilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gate-way of
+their close-fenced gardens, and staring shrinkingly at you as you pass,
+like a nest of yellow kittens.</p>
+
+<p>But as the present century was in its second and third decades, the
+<i>quadroones</i> (for we must contrive a feminine spelling to define the
+strict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor.
+Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessness
+of feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles of
+beauty,&mdash;for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them,&mdash;their
+fascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and pretty
+wit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste and
+elegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> they were
+indeed the sirens of this land, where it seemed "always afternoon"&mdash;a
+momentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, so
+beautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of special
+chapters by writers of the day more original than correct as social
+philosophers.</p>
+
+<p>The balls that were got up for them by the male <i>sang-pur</i> were to that
+day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same
+nights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates of
+government,&mdash;municipal, state, federal,&mdash;those of the army, of the
+learned professions and of the clubs,&mdash;in short, the white male
+aristocracy in everything save the ecclesiastical desk,&mdash;were there.
+Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. No
+distinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!
+They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, and
+wore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likeness
+to innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> could have told you all about
+it; though hardly, I suppose, without tears.</p>
+
+<p>But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendor
+was set, and her husband&mdash;let us call him so for her sake&mdash;was long
+dead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man of
+noble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we can
+do without.</p>
+
+<p>Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine's
+chief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked up
+in-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,&mdash;a very
+worthy person; and they were, may be, nearer correct than they knew.
+They rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a
+small, rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a
+gentle thoughtfulness of expression which it would take long to
+describe: call it a widow's look.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made of
+a gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> gone now, and
+was out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron staple
+clasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.</p>
+
+<p>Which leads us to speak of another person.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER III.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>He was one of those men that might be any age,&mdash;thirty, forty,
+forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and what
+was only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but also
+luminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterward
+remembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of his
+eyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the
+closest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not with
+the oddness that he who reared him had striven to produce.</p>
+
+<p>He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both in
+infancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa of
+the colonial school, whose unceas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>ing endeavor had been to make "his
+boy" as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as it
+became a pure-blooded French Creole to be who could trace his pedigree
+back to the god Mars.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, my boy," was the adjuration received by him as regularly as
+his waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever kept
+the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should
+bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from
+the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of
+gentle, <i>judicial</i> benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house
+used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.
+His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial
+expression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or of
+large dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.</p>
+
+<p>And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of his
+grandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> was he
+loud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him to
+society; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and the
+old man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up to
+that pitch where he scorned to practice any vice, or any virtue, that
+did not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only were
+wanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old man
+died. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to
+see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride,
+of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.</p>
+
+<p>The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority
+(say 1808 or 1812), only merchant blacksmiths, so to speak, a term
+intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands,
+who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and
+moved in society among its autocrats. But they were full of
+possibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with al<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>ready a
+pronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivals
+they would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac and
+Barataria.</p>
+
+<p>Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had not
+only the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turn
+for accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with an
+enterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himself
+with the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in the
+Lafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with their
+shining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ring
+with the stroke of their hammers; but as a&mdash;there was no occasion to
+mince the word in those days&mdash;smuggler.</p>
+
+<p>Smuggler&mdash;patriot&mdash;where was the difference? Beyond the ken of a
+community to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long been
+merely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into the
+all-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> under a
+kinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customs
+were dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man be
+more than Capitaine Lemaitre was&mdash;the soul of honor, the pink of
+courtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of the
+elephant; frank&mdash;the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: his
+paper was good in Toulouse street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he
+was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimer
+virtues.</p>
+
+<p>Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history.
+Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted in
+their interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to grow
+disreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made upon
+them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. The
+business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising
+Lafittes&mdash;thinkers&mdash;bethought them of a corrective&mdash;"privateering."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon the United States Government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> set a price upon their heads.
+Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered
+money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then
+hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they
+had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the
+market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were
+received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the
+battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and&mdash;here
+tradition takes up the tale&mdash;were never seen afterward.</p>
+
+<p>Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among
+the missing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THREE FRIENDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was
+a little man fondly known among his people as P&egrave;re Jerome. He was a
+Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling
+was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,
+close fence, and reached by a narrow outdoor stair from the green batten
+gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated behind
+by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of the
+chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in benediction.
+The name of the street&mdash;ah! there is where light is wanting. Save the
+Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of record concerning
+churches at that time, though they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> springing up here and there.
+All there is certainty of is that P&egrave;re Jerome's frame chapel was some
+little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have survived the passage of
+years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory" "so as by fire." His
+parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell distinctly there the
+vow of poverty. His bedchamber was bare and clean, and the bed in it
+narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room that would tempt
+a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was small, but
+stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of fine wood,
+and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling pleasantry. His
+mother's and sister's doing, P&egrave;re Jerome would explain; they would not
+permit this apartment&mdash;or department&mdash;to suffer. Therein, as well as in
+the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort, that explained
+interestingly the P&egrave;re Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile.</p>
+
+<p>In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes to
+sit with P&egrave;re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached&mdash;one,
+Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his
+brother-in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest
+manhood, and both, like the little priest himself, the regretful
+rememberers of a fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like P&egrave;re
+Jerome, they had come, through years, to the thick of life's
+conflicts,&mdash;the priest's brother-in-law a physician, the other an
+attorney, and brother-in-law to the lonely wanderer,&mdash;yet they loved to
+huddle around this small board, and be boys again in heart while men in
+mind. Neither one nor another was leader. In earlier days they had
+always yielded to him who no longer met with them a certain
+chieftainship, and they still thought of him and talked of him, and, in
+their conjectures, groped after him, as one of whom they continued to
+expect greater things than of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing,
+speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> way,
+the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of
+the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the
+lawyer, who was half Am&eacute;ricain; but running sometimes into English and
+sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome advanced an idea something like this:</p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality
+of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know
+how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or
+our fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is a
+community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human since
+Adam&mdash;nay, nor Adam himself&mdash;ever sinned entirely to himself. And so I
+never am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel my
+conscience pointing at me as one of the accessories."</p>
+
+<p>"In a word," said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we are
+partly to blame<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Father Jerome smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"No; a man cannot plead so in his own defense; our first father tried
+that, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absent
+friend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as
+partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser
+care and with better companions, how different might he not have been!
+How can <i>we</i> speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from
+that name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his
+speech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'P&egrave;re Jerome, 'ow dat is a
+dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Aint it?'
+'Ah, Madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I'ope de good God will fo'give me
+an' you fo' dat!'"</p>
+
+<p>Jean Thompson answered quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"You should not have let her say that."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mais</i>, fo' w'y?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, because, if you are partly respon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>sible, you ought so much the
+more to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have
+said,"&mdash;the attorney changed to French,&mdash;"'He is no pirate; he has
+merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the
+republic of Carthagena!'"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ah, bah</i>!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his
+brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" demanded Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand."</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else,
+when P&egrave;re Jerome spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you what I could have said. I could have said: 'Madame,
+yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him. He stum'le in de dark; but dat good God
+will mek it a <i>mo' terrible</i> fo' dat man, oohever he is, w'at put 'at
+light out!'"</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you know he is a pirate?" demanded Thompson, aggressively.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How do we know?" said the little priest, returning to French. "Ah!
+there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that come
+to us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba,
+of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy and
+gentility&mdash;&mdash;"*
+[*See Gazettes of the period.]</p>
+
+<p>"And whose name is Lafitte," said the obstinate attorney.</p>
+
+<p>"And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte," insisted P&egrave;re Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>"Daz troo, Jean," said Doctor Varrillat. "We hall know daz troo."</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air of
+secrecy, in French.</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. You
+have heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of the
+ship himself drove them off."</p>
+
+<p>"An incredible story," said Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"But not so incredible as the truth. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> it from a passenger. There
+was on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck,
+where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautiful
+than ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a small
+missal spread open, and, her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commanded
+him to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood
+gazing on her face, which did not quail; and then, with a low bow, said:
+'Give me this book and I will do your bidding.' She gave him the book
+and bade him leave the ship, and he left it unmolested."</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again,
+once or twice, with his dimpled smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But he speaks English, they say," said Jean Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us," said the priest.</p>
+
+<p>"But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte."</p>
+
+<p>"Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> brother-in-law, Jean Thompson!
+It is your wife's brother! Not Lafitte, but" (softly) "Lemaitre!
+Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!"</p>
+
+<p>The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on either
+face, and presently broke into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dad
+cog-an'-bull fo' yo' negs summon."</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome's eyes lighted up&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I goin' to do it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, "iv
+dad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyare
+nut'n fo' doze creed; <i>he fall in love</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to P&egrave;re
+Jerome:</p>
+
+<p>"But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e kyare fo' dad creed."</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkable
+effects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> find him
+attributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find for
+some a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was but
+one of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity and
+incredible eccentricity P&egrave;re Jerome had a regular correspondent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER V.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE CAP FITS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>About two months after the conversation just given, and therefore
+somewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, P&egrave;re Jerome
+delighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcement
+that he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the following
+Sabbath&mdash;not there, but in the cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there were
+two or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and said
+he would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of the
+Bible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet "the common people heard
+him gladly." When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smiled
+a little and answered his informant,&mdash;whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> he knew to be one of the
+whisperers himself,&mdash;laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"Father Murphy,"&mdash;or whatever the name was,&mdash;"your words comfort me."</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;'<i>V&aelig; quum benedixerint mihi homines</i>!'"*
+[*"Woe unto me, when all men speak well of me!"]</p>
+
+<p>The appointed morning, when it came, was one of those exquisite days in
+which there is such a universal harmony, that worship rises from the
+heart like a spring.</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," said P&egrave;re Jerome to the companion who was to assist him in the
+mass, "this is a Sabbath day which we do not have to make holy, but only
+to <i>keep</i> so."</p>
+
+<p>May be it was one of the secrets of P&egrave;re Jerome's success as a preacher,
+that he took more thought as to how he should feel, than as to what he
+should say.</p>
+
+<p>The cathedral of those days was called a very plain old pile, boasting
+neither beauty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> nor riches; but to P&egrave;re Jerome it was very lovely; and
+before its homely altar, not homely to him, in the performance of those
+solemn offices, symbols of heaven's mightiest truths, in the hearing of
+the organ's harmonies, and the yet more eloquent interunion of human
+voices in the choir, in overlooking the worshipping throng which knelt
+under the soft, chromatic lights, and in breathing the sacrificial odors
+of the chancel, he found a deep and solemn joy; and yet I guess the
+finest thought of his soul the while was one that came thrice and again:</p>
+
+<p>"Be not deceived, P&egrave;re Jerome, because saintliness of feeling is easy
+here; you are the same priest who overslept this morning, and overate
+yesterday, and will, in some way, easily go wrong to-morrow and the day
+after."</p>
+
+<p>He took it with him when&mdash;the <i>Veni Creator</i> sung&mdash;he went into the
+pulpit. Of the sermon he preached, tradition has preserved for us only a
+few brief sayings, but they are strong and sweet.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said,&mdash;this was near the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> beginning,&mdash;"the angry words
+of God's book are very merciful&mdash;they are meant to drive us home; but
+the tender words, my friends, they are sometimes terrible! Notice these,
+the tenderest words of the tenderest prayer that ever came from the lips
+of a blessed martyr&mdash;the dying words of the holy Saint Stephen, 'Lord,
+lay not this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dreadful in that?
+Read it thus: 'Lord, lay not this sin to <i>their</i> charge.' Not to the
+charge of them who stoned him? To whose charge then? Go ask the holy
+Saint Paul. Three years afterward, praying in the temple at Jerusalem,
+he answered that question: 'I stood by and consented.' He answered for
+himself only; but the Day must come when all that wicked council that
+sent Saint Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of Jerusalem,
+must hold up the hand and say: 'We, also, Lord&mdash;we stood by.' Ah!
+friends, under the simpler meaning of that dying saint's prayer for the
+pardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth that we all have a
+share in one another's sins."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus P&egrave;re Jerome touched his key-note. All that time has spared us
+beside may be given in a few sentences.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he cried once, "if it were merely my own sins that I had to answer
+for, I might hold up my head before the rest of mankind; but no, no, my
+friends&mdash;we cannot look each other in the face, for each has helped the
+other to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of common
+disgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despair
+ought to bind us together and forever silence the voice of scorn!"</p>
+
+<p>And again, this:</p>
+
+<p>"Even in the promise to No&euml;, not again to destroy the race with a flood,
+there is a whisper of solemn warning. The moral account of the
+antediluvians was closed off and the balance brought down in the year of
+the deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on, and
+the blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop it
+till the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come at
+last, when thou wilt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> destroy the world, and stop the interest on my
+account!"</p>
+
+<p>It was about at this point that P&egrave;re Jerome noticed, more particularly
+than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a
+small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who
+gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress,
+seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were
+scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small,
+by gloves.</p>
+
+<p>"Quadroones," thought he, with a stir of deep pity.</p>
+
+<p>Once, as he uttered some stirring word, he saw the mother and daughter
+(if such they were), while they still bent their gaze upon him, clasp
+each other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at these
+words:</p>
+
+<p>"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans
+to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the <i>nots</i>
+rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to
+purgatory for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who
+strew it with thorns and briers!"</p>
+
+<p>The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. He
+glanced that way again as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaven
+this day had they never had a father and mother, but had got their
+religious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisiana
+this holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"</p>
+
+<p>The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged
+the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full
+of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side
+aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other,
+"who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only
+principle of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even
+gain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance to
+nature, defiance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> to reason; defiance and defiance and defiance."</p>
+
+<p>"He is going to tell it!" murmured Evariste to Jean.</p>
+
+<p>"This man," continued P&egrave;re Jerome, "became a smuggler and at last a
+pirate in the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, lay not that sin to his charge
+alone! But a strange thing followed. Being in command of men of a sort
+that to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he now
+found himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemn
+companionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm, the
+heavens by day, the heavens by night. My friends, that was the first
+time in his life that he ever found himself in really good company.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, this man had a great aptness for accounts. He had kept them&mdash;had
+rendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, and
+closed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result is
+plain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holy
+spectacle of the starry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> deep above and the watery deep below, was sure
+to find himself, sooner or later, mastered by the conviction that the
+great Author of this majestic creation keeps account of it; and one
+night there came to him, like a spirit walking on the sea, the awful,
+silent question: 'My account with God&mdash;how does it stand?' Ah! friends,
+that is a question which the book of nature does not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say the book of nature is a catechism? Yes. But, after it answers
+the first question with 'God,' nothing but questions follow; and so, one
+day, this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one little book which
+answered those questions. God help him to understand it! and God help
+you, monsieur and you, madame, sitting here in your <i>smuggled clothes</i>,
+to beat upon the breast with me and cry, 'I, too, Lord&mdash;I, too, stood by
+and consented.'"</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome had not intended these for his closing words; but just
+there, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, a
+man rose slowly from his seat and re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>garded him steadily with a kind,
+bronzed, sedate face, and the sermon, as if by a sign of command, was
+ended. While the <i>Credo</i> was being chanted he was still there; but when,
+a moment after its close, the eye of P&egrave;re Jerome returned in that
+direction, his place was empty.</p>
+
+<p>As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was
+turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he
+just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him
+to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole patois,
+saying, with some timid haste:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, P&egrave;re&mdash;P&egrave;re Jerome; P&egrave;re Jerome, we thank the good God for
+that sermon."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had
+noticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was a
+beautiful figure, but the slight effort of P&egrave;re Jerome's kind eyes to
+see through the veil was vain. He would presently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> have passed on, but
+the one who had spoken before said:</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I am going this way to see a sick person."</p>
+
+<p>The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and
+timidity.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good
+God," she said.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it,
+just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have
+added that he loved to do it, quite as much.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get
+courage to ask it.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a little boy?" asked the priest.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Then
+she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness
+asked:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"P&egrave;re Jerome, what was the name of that man?"</p>
+
+<p>"His name?" said the priest. "You wish to know his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Monsieur" (or <i>Mich&eacute;</i>, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful
+story." The speaker's companion looked another way.</p>
+
+<p>"His name," said Father Jerome,&mdash;"some say one name and some another.
+Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him? And
+do you go to my church, Madame&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mich&eacute;; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"&mdash;she
+choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this
+mark of confidence&mdash;"is Madame Delphine&mdash;Delphine Carraze."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A CRY OF DISTRESS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome's smile and exclamation, as some days later he entered his
+parlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative of
+hearty greeting rather than surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for though
+another Sunday had not yet come around, the slim, smallish figure
+sitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire,
+which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was Delphine
+Carraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over and
+above an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he had
+recognized her voice.</p>
+
+<p>She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> looked to the floor, and
+began a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiled
+weakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note,
+frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes, while shadows of
+anxiety and smiles of apology chased each other rapidly across her face.
+She was trying to ask his advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
+downcast eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"You know,&mdash;probably I should have said this in the confessional, but&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
+perhaps; you want a friend."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.</p>
+
+<p>"I"&mdash;she ceased. "I have done a"&mdash;she dropped her head and shook it
+despondingly&mdash;"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
+turned away her face.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
+evident intention of speaking at length.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It began nineteen years ago&mdash;by"&mdash;her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
+lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
+murmured&mdash;"I fell in love."</p>
+
+<p>She said no more, and by and by P&egrave;re Jerome replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
+love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
+smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
+answer for, and yet I think God may have said: 'She is a quadroone; all
+the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
+her&mdash;almost compulsory,&mdash;charge it to account of whom it may concern."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it might
+fall upon&mdash;" Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips and
+nervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good&mdash;as good as
+the law would let him be&mdash;better, indeed, for he left me property, which
+really the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+much. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error and
+asking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to them when
+he died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteen
+years. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. And
+then&mdash;at last&mdash;" Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligently
+with her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of her
+lap.</p>
+
+<p>"At last your mother-heart conquered," said P&egrave;re Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was she
+did not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she asked
+me to let her come&mdash;." The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "I
+know it was wicked, but&mdash;I said, come."</p>
+
+<p>The tears dripped through her hands upon her dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it she who was with you last Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And now you do not know what to do with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ah! c'est &ccedil;a, oui!</i>&mdash;that is it."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank God, no! you would never believe she was my daughter; she is
+white and beautiful!"</p>
+
+<p>"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! yes."</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
+out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
+Delphine without changing his attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.</p>
+
+<p>"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
+speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
+dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
+which almost as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
+happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
+cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally&mdash;which they
+have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.</p>
+
+<p>"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
+to the worst.</p>
+
+<p>The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief,
+with the stifled cry:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Madame Delphine," said P&egrave;re Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is
+sure: we <i>must</i> find a way out of this trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it must be!" said the priest.</p>
+
+<p>"But how shall it be?" asked the desponding woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said P&egrave;re Jerome, with a shrug, "God knows."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the quadroone, with a quick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> sparkle in her gentle eye; "and
+I know, if God would tell anybody, He would tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>The priest smiled and rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so? Well, leave me to think of it. I will ask Him."</p>
+
+<p>"And He will tell you!" she replied. "And He will bless you!" She rose
+and gave her hand. As she withdrew it she smiled. "I had such a strange
+dream," she said, backing toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I got my troubles all mixed up with your sermon. I dreamed I made
+that pirate the guardian of my daughter."</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this
+country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think
+that one is, without doubt, the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt," echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawing
+backward. P&egrave;re Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>The shadow of some one approaching it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> from without fell upon the
+threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting
+from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair
+where the hat had covered it and dark below, gently stroking back his
+very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while
+P&egrave;re Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger
+hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's
+eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor
+were of white duck.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, P&egrave;re Jerome," she said, in a hurried under-tone, "I am just going
+to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, Madame
+Carraze."</p>
+
+<p>And as she departed, the priest turned to the new-comer and extended
+both hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been
+addressing the quadroone:</p>
+
+<p>"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing
+with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often
+mentioning Evariste and often Jean.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to P&egrave;re
+Jerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. She
+passed through the one and with downcast eyes was standing at the other,
+her hand lifted to knock, when the door was drawn open and the white
+duck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonade
+suit.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the voice of P&egrave;re Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in the
+door&mdash;"Ah! Madame&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I lef' my para<i>sol</i>," said Madame Delphine, in English.</p>
+
+<p>There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere down
+under her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventional
+prohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, and
+carried a parasol.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome turned and brought it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor had
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine, you saw dat man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not his face."</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn' billieve me iv I tell you w'at dat man pur<i>pose</i> to do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is dad so, P&egrave;re Jerome?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's goin' to hopen a bank!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Madame Delphine, seeing she was expected to be astonished.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome evidently longed to tell something that was best kept
+secret; he repressed the impulse, but his heart had to say something. He
+threw forward one hand and looking pleasantly at Madame Delphine, with
+his lips dropped apart, clenched his extended hand and thrusting it
+toward the ground, said in a solemn under-tone:</p>
+
+<p>"He is God's own banker, Madame Delphine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>MICH&Eacute; VIGNEVIELLE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Madame Delphine sold one of the corner lots of her property. She had
+almost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequence
+of the sale, she had a few large bank-notes sewed up in her petticoat,
+and one day&mdash;may be a fortnight after her tearful interview with P&egrave;re
+Jerome&mdash;she found it necessary to get one of these changed into small
+money. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the other
+for a bank which was not in that street at all, when she noticed a small
+sign hanging above a door, bearing the name "Vignevielle." She looked
+in. P&egrave;re Jerome had told her (when she had gone to him to ask where she
+should apply for change) that if she could only wait a few days, there
+would be a new concern opened in Toulouse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> street,&mdash;it really seemed as
+if Vignevielle was the name, if she could judge; it looked to be, and it
+was, a private banker's,&mdash;"U. L. Vignevielle's," according to a larger
+inscription which met her eyes as she ventured in. Behind the counter,
+exchanging some last words with a busy-mannered man outside, who, in
+withdrawing, seemed bent on running over Madame Delphine, stood the man
+in blue cottonade, whom she had met in P&egrave;re Jerome's door-way. Now, for
+the first time, she saw his face, its strong, grave, human kindness
+shining softly on each and every bronzed feature. The recognition was
+mutual. He took pains to speak first, saying, in a re-assuring tone, and
+in the language he had last heard her use:</p>
+
+<p>"'Ow I kin serve you, Madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Iv you pliz, to mague dad bill change, Mich&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>She pulled from her pocket a wad of dark cotton handkerchief, from which
+she began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had an
+uncommonly sweet voice, and it seemed so to strike Monsieur Vignevielle.
+He spoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> to her once or twice more, as he waited on her, each time in
+English, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, and
+presently, as she turned to go, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Carraze!"</p>
+
+<p>She started a little, but bethought herself instantly that he had heard
+her name in P&egrave;re Jerome's parlor. The good father might even have said a
+few words about her after her first departure; he had such an
+overflowing heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Carraze," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "doze kine of note wad you
+'<i>an</i>' me juz now is bein' contrefit. You muz tek kyah from doze kine of
+note. You see&mdash;" He drew from his cash-drawer a note resembling the one
+he had just changed for her, and proceeded to point out certain tests of
+genuineness. The counterfeit, he said, was so and so.</p>
+
+<p>"Bud," she exclaimed, with much dismay, "dad was de manner of my bill!
+Id muz be&mdash;led me see dad bill wad I give you,&mdash;if you pliz, Mich&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Vignevielle turned to engage in conversation with an employ&eacute;
+and a new vis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>itor, and gave no sign of hearing Madame Delphine's voice.
+She asked a second time, with like result, lingered timidly, and as he
+turned to give his attention to a third visitor, reiterated:</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute; Vignevielle, I wizh you pliz led&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Carraze," he said, turning so suddenly as to make the frightened
+little woman start, but extending his palm with a show of frankness, and
+assuming a look of benignant patience, "'ow I kin fine doze note now,
+mongs' all de rez? Iv you pliz nod to mague me doze troub'."</p>
+
+<p>The dimmest shadow of a smile seemed only to give his words a more
+kindly authoritative import, and as he turned away again with a manner
+suggestive of finality, Madame Delphine found no choice but to depart.
+But she went away loving the ground beneath the feet of Monsieur U. L.
+Vignevielle.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome!" she exclaimed in the corrupt French of her caste,
+meeting the little father on the street a few days later, "you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> told the
+truth that day in your parlor. <i>Mo conn&eacute; li &agrave; c't heure</i>. I know him
+now; he is just what you called him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not make him <i>your</i> banker, also, Madame Delphine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have done so this very day!" she replied, with more happiness in her
+eyes than P&egrave;re Jerome had ever before seen there.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine," he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make <i>him</i> your
+daughter's guardian; for myself, being a priest, it would not be best;
+but ask him; I believe he will not refuse you."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine's face grew still brighter as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"It was in my mind," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Yet to the timorous Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after
+another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks
+elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at
+length, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind Monsieur
+Vignevielle's banking-room,&mdash;he sitting beside a table, and she, more
+timid and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door,&mdash;she
+said, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seem
+unimportant, and yet with some tremor of voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute; Vignevielle, I bin maguing my will." (Having commenced their
+acquaintance in English, they spoke nothing else.)</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a good idy," responded the banker.</p>
+
+<p>"I kin mague you de troub' to kib dad will fo' me, Mich&eacute; Vignevielle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yez."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up with grateful re-assurance; but her eyes dropped again as
+she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute; Vignevielle&mdash;&mdash;" Here she choked, and began her peculiar motion
+of laying folds in the skirt of her dress, with trembling fingers. She
+lifted her eyes, and as they met the look of deep and placid kindness
+that was in his face, some courage returned, and she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute;."</p>
+
+<p>"Wad you wand?" asked he, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"If it arrive to me to die&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yez?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her words were scarcely audible:</p>
+
+<p>"I wand you teg kyah my lill' girl."</p>
+
+<p>"You 'ave one lill' gal, Madame Carraze?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded with her face down.</p>
+
+<p>"An' you godd some mo' chillen?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I nevva know dad, Madame Carraze. She's a lill' small gal?"</p>
+
+<p>Mothers forget their daughters' stature. Madame Delphine said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yez."</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments neither spoke, and then Monsieur Vignevielle said:</p>
+
+<p>"I will do dad."</p>
+
+<p>"Lag she been you' h-own?" asked the mother, suffering from her own
+boldness.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a good lill' chile, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute;, she's a lill' hangel!" exclaimed Madame Delphine, with a look of
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>"Yez; I teg kyah 'v 'er, lag my h-own. I mague you dad promise."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" There was something still in the way, Madame Delphine seemed
+to think.</p>
+
+<p>The banker waited in silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you will want to see my lill' girl?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled; for she looked at him as if she would implore him to decline.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I tek you' word fo' hall dad, Madame Carraze. It mague no differend
+wad she loog lag; I don' wan' see 'er."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine's parting smile&mdash;she went very shortly&mdash;was gratitude
+beyond speech.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Vignevielle returned to the seat he had left, and resumed a
+newspaper,&mdash;the <i>Louisiana Gazette</i> in all probability,&mdash;which he had
+laid down upon Madame Delphine's entrance. His eyes fell upon a
+paragraph which had previously escaped his notice. There they rested.
+Either he read it over and over unwearyingly, or he was lost in thought.
+Jean Thompson entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Mr. Thompson, in a suppressed tone, bending a little across
+the table, and laying one palm upon a package of papers which lay in the
+other, "it is completed. You could retire from your business any day
+inside of six hours without loss to anybody." (Both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> here and elsewhere,
+let it be understood that where good English is given the words were
+spoken in good French.)</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Vignevielle raised his eyes and extended the newspaper to the
+attorney, who received it and read the paragraph. Its substance was that
+a certain vessel of the navy had returned from a cruise in the Gulf of
+Mexico and Straits of Florida, where she had done valuable service
+against the pirates&mdash;having, for instance, destroyed in one fortnight in
+January last twelve pirate vessels afloat, two on the stocks, and three
+establishments ashore.</p>
+
+<p>"United States brig <i>Porpoise</i>," repeated Jean Thompson. "Do you know
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are acquainted," said Monsieur Vignevielle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>SHE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neat
+garb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, a
+silent bow, a new sign in the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane,
+walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal
+Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti&mdash;these were
+all; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the return
+of Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and early
+life.</p>
+
+<p>But we hardly give the event its right name. It was Capitaine Lemaitre
+who had disappeared; it was Monsieur Vignevielle who had come back. The
+pleasures, the haunts, the companions, that had once held out their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+charms to the impetuous youth, offered no enticements to Madame
+Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his
+grandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above low
+indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves
+through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it
+loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all.
+Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the right way," he said to P&egrave;re Jerome, the day we saw him there.
+"Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his
+executor."</p>
+
+<p>"He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f."</p>
+
+<p>Evariste spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go
+crazy."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy.
+"You should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper
+paragraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I
+claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship.' He is
+crazy."</p>
+
+<p>Of course Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it,
+and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the <i>banquettes</i> and at the clubs;
+and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover
+was a trifle snarled in his top-hamper.</p>
+
+<p>This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricities
+of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactions
+in business.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not running
+a charitable institution!"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversation
+ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the
+attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of
+it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And make the end worse than the beginning," said the banker, with a
+gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he
+seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those
+who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but
+those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or
+gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you
+might see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane. It was very
+singular.</p>
+
+<p>He walked much alone after dark. The <i>guichinangoes</i> (garroters, we
+might say), at those times the city's particular terror by night, never
+crossed his path. He was one of those men for whom danger appears to
+stand aside.</p>
+
+<p>One beautiful summer night, when all nature seemed hushed in ecstasy,
+the last blush gone that told of the sun's parting, Monsieur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+Vignevielle, in the course of one of those contemplative, uncompanioned
+walks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more open
+portion of the Rue Royale, with a step which was soft without intention,
+occasionally touching the end of his stout cane gently to the ground and
+looking upward among his old acquaintances, the stars.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the sterner
+energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and the
+fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters and
+escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush and
+sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by
+the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still
+again, as if the breezes lifted their expectant pinions and lowered them
+once more, awaiting the rising of the moon in a silence which fell upon
+the fields, the roads, the gardens, the walls, and the suburban and
+half-suburban streets, like a pause in worship. And anon she rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part of
+the town, and he was presently passing along a high, close, board-fence,
+on the right-hand side of the way, when, just within this inclosure, and
+almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a
+mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. It
+may have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted the
+passer's attention, but he paused and looked up.</p>
+
+<p>And then he remarked something more,&mdash;that the air where he had stopped
+was filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. He
+looked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate just
+there. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about it
+in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An
+iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the
+gate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing
+business&mdash;an eye which had later received high training as an eye for
+fastenings&mdash;fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the wood
+had shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though without
+falling out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand
+upon the cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was
+drawn partly open.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or
+gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of
+whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had
+met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within the
+opening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, a
+broad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-trees
+and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell,
+the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds
+stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There,
+very near by,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had
+tempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned
+from him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the
+right, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely
+a door of the house might open upon it. While he still looked, there
+fell upon his ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on the
+broken shells,&mdash;one only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had
+he mistaken? No. The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale
+glimpse of robes came through the tangle, and then, plainly to view,
+appeared an outline&mdash;a presence&mdash;a form&mdash;a spirit&mdash;a girl!</p>
+
+<p>From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
+medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
+waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
+heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
+a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
+temples,&mdash;her arms, half hid in a snowy mist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> of sleeve, let down to
+guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
+grass,&mdash;straight down the path she came!</p>
+
+<p>Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
+deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
+vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
+the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
+tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? <i>Can it be?</i> Is this
+his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to M. Vignevielle the
+unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is
+now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will
+shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do
+that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck
+and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mocking-bird cannot
+withhold; he breaks into song&mdash;she turns&mdash;she turns her face&mdash;it is she,
+it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER IX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>OLIVE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>She was just passing seventeen&mdash;that beautiful year when the heart of
+the maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,
+while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation of
+womanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair were
+fair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,
+lacklustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,
+no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face that
+seemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for the
+large, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingled
+dreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color of
+shell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> that which took
+its place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.</p>
+
+<p>This side door-way which led from Madame Delphine's house into her
+garden was overarched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice,
+and partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned
+a rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when the
+twilights were balmy or the moon was bright.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ch&eacute;rie</i>," said Madame Delphine on one of these evenings, "why do you
+dream so much?"</p>
+
+<p>She spoke in the <i>patois</i> most natural to her, and which her daughter
+had easily learned.</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped her
+glance to the hands in her own lap, which were listlessly handling the
+end of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Her
+dress was white again; this was but one night since that in which
+Monsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He had
+not been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leaving
+it as he had found it.</p>
+
+<p>Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in the
+moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste
+drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was
+again laying aside to re-assume the medi&aelig;val bondage of the stay-lace;
+for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine
+and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,
+of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her
+hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle
+admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.</p>
+
+<p>Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, and
+on that account repeated her question:</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thinking about?"</p>
+
+<p>The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,
+bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.</p>
+
+<p>The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> silence which followed, a
+daughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, and
+Olive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of P&egrave;re Jerome's sermon."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the day
+it was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever
+afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of
+secondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon.</p>
+
+<p>Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own;
+but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think, <i>maman</i>, that P&egrave;re Jerome knows it was I who gave that
+missal?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Madame Delphine, "I am sure he does not."</p>
+
+<p>Another question came more timidly:</p>
+
+<p>"Do&mdash;do you think he knows <i>him</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. He said in his sermon he did."</p>
+
+<p>Both remained for a long time very still,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> watching the moon gliding in
+and through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughter
+spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was P&egrave;re&mdash;I wish I was as good as P&egrave;re Jerome."</p>
+
+<p>"My child," said Madame Delphine, her tone betraying a painful summoning
+of strength to say what she had lacked the courage to utter,&mdash;"my child,
+I pray the good God you will not let your heart go after one whom you
+may never see in this world!"</p>
+
+<p>The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her arms
+about her mother's neck, laid her cheek upon it for a moment, and then,
+feeling the maternal tear, lifted her lips, and, kissing her, said:</p>
+
+<p>"I will not! I will not!"</p>
+
+<p>But the voice was one, not of willing consent, but of desperate
+resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be useless, anyhow," said the mother, laying her arm around
+her daughter's waist.</p>
+
+<p>Olive repeated the kiss, prolonging it passionately.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have nobody but you," murmured the girl; "I am a poor quadroone!"</p>
+
+<p>She threw back her plaited hair for a third embrace, when a sound in the
+shrubbery startled them.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Qui ci &ccedil;a?</i>" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as the two
+stood up, holding to each other.</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"It was only the dropping of a twig," she whispered, after a long
+holding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred it
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course of
+time, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, and
+fearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER X.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BIRDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Monsieur Vignevielle looked in at no more doors or windows; but if the
+disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to
+notice which were especially bad,&mdash;for instance, wakefulness. At
+well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not
+patrol singly, would meet him on his slow, unmolested, sky-gazing walk.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to enjoy it," said Jean Thompson; "the worst sort of evidence. If
+he showed distress of mind, it would not be so bad; but his
+calmness,&mdash;ugly feature."</p>
+
+<p>The attorney had held his ground so long that he began really to believe
+it was tenable.</p>
+
+<p>By day, it is true, Monsieur Vignevielle was at his post in his quiet
+"bank." Yet here, day by day, he was the source of more and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> more vivid
+astonishment to those who held preconceived notions of a banker's
+calling. As a banker, at least, he was certainly out of balance; while
+as a promenader, it seemed to those who watched him that his ruling idea
+had now veered about, and that of late he was ever on the quiet alert,
+not to find, but to evade, somebody.</p>
+
+<p>"Olive, my child," whispered Madame Delphine one morning, as the pair
+were kneeling side by side on the tiled floor of the church, "yonder is
+Mich&eacute; Vignevielle! If you will only look at once&mdash;he is just passing a
+little in&mdash;&mdash;. Ah, much too slow again; he stepped out by the side
+door."</p>
+
+<p>The mother thought it a strange providence that Monsieur Vignevielle
+should always be disappearing whenever Olive was with her.</p>
+
+<p>One early dawn, Madame Delphine, with a small empty basket on her arm,
+stepped out upon the <i>banquette</i> in front of her house, shut and
+fastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence you
+could faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> songs of the
+Gascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of the
+distant market-house. She was going to see if she could find some birds
+for Olive,&mdash;the child's appetite was so poor; and, as she was out, she
+would drop an early prayer at the cathedral. Faith and works.</p>
+
+<p>"One must venture something, sometimes, in the cause of religion,"
+thought she, as she started timorously on her way. But she had not gone
+a dozen steps before she repented her temerity. There was some one
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>There should not be anything terrible in a footstep merely because it is
+masculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider that.
+A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had found a
+shoe-track in the garden. She had not disclosed the discovery to Olive,
+but she had hardly closed her eyes the whole night.</p>
+
+<p>The step behind her now might be the fall of that very shoe. She
+quickened her pace, but did not leave the sound behind. She hurried
+forward almost at a run; yet it was still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> there&mdash;no farther, no nearer.
+Two frights were upon her at once&mdash;one for herself, another for Olive,
+left alone in the house; but she had but the one prayer&mdash;"God protect my
+child!" After a fearful time she reached a place of safety, the
+cathedral. There, panting, she knelt long enough to know the pursuit
+was, at least, suspended, and then arose, hoping and praying all the
+saints that she might find the way clear for her return in all haste to
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p>She approached a different door from that by which she had entered, her
+eyes in all directions and her heart in her throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Carraze."</p>
+
+<p>She started wildly and almost screamed, though the voice was soft and
+mild. Monsieur Vignevielle came slowly forward from the shade of the
+wall. They met beside a bench, upon which she dropped her basket.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mich&eacute; Vignevielle, I thang de good God to mid you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is dad so, Madame Carraze? Fo' w'y dad is?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A man was chase me all dad way since my 'ouse!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Madame, I sawed him."</p>
+
+<p>"You sawed 'im? Oo it was?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas only one man wad is a foolizh. De people say he's crezzie.
+<i>Mais</i>, he don' goin' to meg you no 'arm."</p>
+
+<p>"But I was scare' fo' my lill' girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Noboddie don' goin' trouble you' lill' gal, Madame Carraze."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine looked up into the speaker's strangely kind and patient
+eyes, and drew sweet re-assurance from them.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "wad pud you hout so hearly dis
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>She told him her errand. She asked if he thought she would find
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>"Yez," he said, "it was possible&mdash;a few lill' <i>b&eacute;cassines-de-mer</i>, ou
+somezin' ligue. But fo' w'y you lill' gal lose doze hapetide?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mich&eacute;,"&mdash;Madame Delphine might have tried a thousand times again
+without ever succeeding half so well in lifting the curtain upon the
+whole, sweet, tender, old, old-fash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>ioned truth,&mdash;"Ah, Mich&eacute;, she wone
+tell me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bud, anny'ow, Madame, wad you thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute;," she replied, looking up again with a tear standing in either
+eye, and then looking down once more as she began to speak, "I thing&mdash;I
+thing she's lonesome."</p>
+
+<p>"You thing?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Madame Carraze," he said, partly extending his hand, "you see? 'Tis
+impossible to mague you' owze shud so tighd to priv-en dad. Madame, I
+med one mizteg."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, <i>non</i>, Mich&eacute;!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yez. There har nod one poss'bil'ty fo' me to be dad guardian of you'
+daughteh!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine started with surprise and alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"There is ondly one wad can be," he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"But oo, Mich&eacute;?"</p>
+
+<p>"God."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mich&eacute; Vignevielle&mdash;&mdash;" She looked at him appealingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don' goin' to dizzerd you, Madame Carraze," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyes. They filled. She shook her head, a tear fell, she
+bit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, sat
+down upon the bench and wept until she shook.</p>
+
+<p>"You dunno wad I mean, Madame Carraze?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not know.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean dad guardian of you' daughteh godd to fine 'er now one 'uzban';
+an' noboddie are hable to do dad egceb de good God 'imsev. But, Madame,
+I tell you wad I do."</p>
+
+<p>She rose up. He continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Go h-open you' owze; I fin' you' daughteh dad' uzban'."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine was a helpless, timid thing; but her eyes showed she was
+about to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand&mdash;it
+touched her shoulder&mdash;and said, kindly still, and without eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"One w'ite man, Madame; 'tis prattycabble. I <i>know</i> 'tis prattycabble.
+One w'ite jantleman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Madame. You can truz me. I goin' fedge 'im.
+H-ondly you go h-open you' owze."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine looked down, twining her handkerchief among her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated his proposition.</p>
+
+<p>"You will come firz by you'se'f?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Iv you wand."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted up once more her eye of faith. That was her answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, gently, "I wan' sen' some bird ad you' lill' gal."</p>
+
+<p>And they went away, Madame Delphine's spirit grown so exaltedly bold
+that she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute; Vignevielle, I thing P&egrave;re Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell you
+someboddie."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>FACE TO FACE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ah! ma piti sans popa</i>! Ah! my little fatherless one!" Her faded
+bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and
+her dropped basket, with its "few lill' <i>b&eacute;cassines-de-mer</i>" dangling
+from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "<i>Ma
+piti</i>! kiss!&mdash;kiss!&mdash;kiss!"</p>
+
+<p>"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or
+fifth time.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dieu sait, ma c'&egrave;re; mo pas conn&eacute;!</i>"&mdash;God knows, my darling; I cannot
+tell!</p>
+
+<p>The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and
+burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept
+afresh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,
+fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's
+bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"</p>
+
+<p>"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing&mdash;I am such a fool."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's eyes filled. The mother looked up into her face and said:</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is nothing, nothing, only that&mdash;" turning her head from side to
+side with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Mich&eacute; Vignevielle is the
+best&mdash;<i>best</i> man on the good Lord's earth!"</p>
+
+<p>Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the little
+yellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes.
+Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of telling
+something:</p>
+
+<p>"He sent you those birds!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl drew her face back a little. The little woman turned away,
+trying in vain to hide her tearful smile, and they laughed together,
+Olive mingling a daughter's fond kiss with her laughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is something else," she said, "and you shall tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Madame Delphine, "only let me get composed."</p>
+
+<p>But she did not get so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with the
+timid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could to
+brighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified and
+troubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's spirits rose.</p>
+
+<p>The work began, and presently ensued all the thumping, the trundling,
+the lifting and letting down, the raising and swallowing of dust, and
+the smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go to
+characterize a housekeeper's <i>&eacute;meute</i>; and still, as the work
+progressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little black
+eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever coming
+to see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last sat
+down, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. She
+rose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door that
+opened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticed
+bower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There was
+an agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealing
+tone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between her
+palms, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ah! ma m&egrave;re, qui vini 'ci ce soir?</i>"&mdash;Who is coming here this evening?</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my dear child, I was just saying, we like a clean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But the daughter was desperate:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell me, my mother, <i>who</i> is coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, it is our blessed friend, Mich&eacute; Vignevielle!"</p>
+
+<p>"To see me?" cried the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my mother, what have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Olive, my child," exclaimed the little mother, bursting into
+tears, "do you forget it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> is Mich&eacute; Vignevielle who has promised to
+protect you when I die?"</p>
+
+<p>The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced around
+again, and extending her arms toward her mother, cried:</p>
+
+<p>"How can&mdash;he is a white man&mdash;I am a poor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! <i>ch&eacute;rie</i>" replied Madame Delphine, seizing the outstretched hands,
+"it is there&mdash;it is there that he shows himself the best man alive! He
+sees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you a
+suitor!"</p>
+
+<p>Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stood
+proudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but the
+next moment she had uttered a cry, and was sobbing on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The mother knelt beside her and threw an arm about her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my sweet daughter, you must not cry! I did not want to tell you at
+all! I did not want to tell you! It isn't fair for you to cry so hard.
+Mich&eacute; Vignevielle says you shall have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the one you wish, or none at all,
+Olive, or none at all."</p>
+
+<p>"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with him
+to-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went alone
+to their chamber in the half-story.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window to
+door, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemed
+dismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. How
+she had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! A
+little beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, with
+her eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline was
+undistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening.</p>
+
+<p>She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, an
+approaching step<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stood
+still. She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoe
+grated softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating
+in great thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low,
+and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Mich&eacute; Vignevielle!"</p>
+
+<p>He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which we
+have noticed. She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened,
+with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp. But her
+hands paused in their work again,&mdash;Olive's step was on the stairs; then
+it came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there was
+the whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowy
+figure in the door. She was dressed for the evening.</p>
+
+<p>"Maman?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at that
+moment it responded with a tiny bead of light.</p>
+
+<p>"I am here, my daughter."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence,
+lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoring
+her effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystal
+of the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side;
+the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of the
+room came back into shape.</p>
+
+<p>"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Mich&eacute; Vignevielle, my daughter&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, a
+dark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expanding
+to the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face of
+Capitaine Lemaitre.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER XII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE MOTHER BIRD.</h3>
+
+
+<p>One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called on
+Madame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and had
+hardly left the gate of his cottage, when a person, overtaking him,
+plucked his gown:</p>
+
+<p>"P&egrave;re Jerome&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He turned.</p>
+
+<p>The face that met his was so changed with excitement and distress that
+for an instant he did not recognize it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Madame Delphine&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! <i>Mo oul&eacute; dit
+qui&ccedil;'ose</i>,&mdash;I godd some' to tell you."</p>
+
+<p>The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed to
+think.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We had better go back to my parlor," said the priest, in their native
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>They returned.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine's very step was altered,&mdash;nervous and inelastic. She
+swung one arm as she walked, and brandished a turkey-tail fan.</p>
+
+<p>"I was glad, yass, to kedge you," she said, as they mounted the front,
+outdoor stair; following her speech with a slight, unmusical laugh, and
+fanning herself with unconscious fury.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>F&eacute; chaud</i>," she remarked again, taking the chair he offered and
+continuing to ply the fan.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her,
+and said, as he wiped his kindly face:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Madame Carraze?"</p>
+
+<p>Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan to
+her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.</p>
+
+<p>"P&egrave;re Jerome&mdash;&mdash;" She gnawed her lip
+and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>She burst into tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did it
+slowly&mdash;as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face
+with sudden energy, and exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twas
+me! 'Twas me!"</p>
+
+<p>The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly
+turned away her face. P&egrave;re Jerome waited a little before replying; then
+he said, very gently:</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"</p>
+
+<p>The little father felt a wish&mdash;one which he often had when weeping women
+were before him&mdash;that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to
+press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would
+not let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments more
+to pass, and then asked:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>N'est-ce-pas</i>, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, aint it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, P&egrave;re Jerome, no. My daughter&mdash;oh, P&egrave;re Jerome, I bethroath my lill'
+girl&mdash;to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commenced
+savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling
+hand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."</p>
+
+<p>On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:</p>
+
+<p>"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,
+"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yass, 'tis tru'."</p>
+
+<p>He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the
+Creole dialect:</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a good man&mdash;without doubt?"</p>
+
+<p>"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being
+deceived by somebody."</p>
+
+<p>There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and
+smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah-h, no-o-o, Mich&eacute;! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his
+back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i> a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At
+length he halted before the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was
+lifted to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Qui ci &ccedil;a?</i> What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.</p>
+
+<p>"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, P&egrave;re Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and
+putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,
+suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God&mdash;<i>I
+wizh to God</i>&mdash;de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,
+trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> she continued, shaking her
+head, "'tis not Mich&eacute; Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with
+sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad <i>law</i>! Dad <i>law</i> is crezzie! Dad law is a
+fool!"</p>
+
+<p>A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is&mdash;the
+law; but P&egrave;re Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very
+response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I
+help you?"</p>
+
+<p>A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained a
+piteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mais, pou'quoi y&eacute; f&eacute; cette m&eacute;chanique l&agrave;?</i>"&mdash;What business had they to
+make that contraption?</p>
+
+<p>His answer was a shrug with his palms extended and a short, disclamatory
+"Ah." He started to resume his walk, but turned to her again and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Why did they make that law? Well, they made it to keep the two races
+separate."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine startled the speaker with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> a loud, harsh, angry laugh.
+Fire came from her eyes and her lip curled with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they made a lie, P&egrave;re Jerome! Separate! No-o-o! They do not want
+to keep us separated; no, no! But they <i>do</i> want to keep us despised!"
+She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward with physical pain.
+"But, very well! from which race do they want to keep my daughter
+separate? She is seven parts white! The law did not stop her from being
+that; and now, when she wants to be a white man's good and honest wife,
+shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" She rose up. "No; I will tell you what
+that law is made for. It is made
+to&mdash;punish&mdash;my&mdash;child&mdash;for&mdash;not&mdash;choosing&mdash;her&mdash;father! P&egrave;re Jerome&mdash;my
+God, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in a
+flood, which she made no attempt to restrain.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she began again&mdash;and here she broke into English&mdash;"fo' me I don'
+kyare; but, P&egrave;re Jerome,&mdash;'tis fo' dat I come to tell you,&mdash;dey <i>shall
+not</i> punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heaving
+bosom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motion
+of the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly with
+the ends of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome. Go at 'ome."</p>
+
+<p>"Wad you goin' mague?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don' put you'se'f sig. I goin' see
+Ursin. We trah to figs dat law fo' you."</p>
+
+<p>"You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy.</p>
+
+<p>"We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!"</p>
+
+<p>He offered his hand. She seized and kissed it thrice, covering it with
+tears, at the same time lifting up her eyes to his and murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>"De bez man God evva mague!"</p>
+
+<p>At the door she turned to offer a more conventional good-bye; but he was
+following her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, and
+then parted with a simple adieu,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> she going home and he returning for
+his hat, and starting again upon his interrupted business.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings of
+Monsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return for
+some days or weeks."</p>
+
+<p>So P&egrave;re Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward the
+residence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employ&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, as
+far as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Everything is in
+another name." And then he whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from some
+of the prisoners taken months ago by the United States brig <i>Porpoise</i>.
+But"&mdash;a still softer whisper&mdash;"have no fear; they will never find him:
+Jean Thompson and Evariste Varrillat have hid him away too well for
+that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>TRIBULATION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Saturday following was a very beautiful day. In the morning a light
+fall of rain had passed across the town, and all the afternoon you could
+see signs, here and there upon the horizon, of other showers. The ground
+was dry again, while the breeze was cool and sweet, smelling of wet
+foliage and bringing sunshine and shade in frequent and very pleasing
+alternation.</p>
+
+<p>There was a walk in P&egrave;re Jerome's little garden, of which we have not
+spoken, off on the right side of the cottage, with his chamber window at
+one end, a few old and twisted, but blossom-laden, crape-myrtles on
+either hand, now and then a rose of some unpretending variety and some
+bunches of rue, and at the other end a shrine, in whose blue niche
+stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> a small figure of Mary, with folded hands and uplifted eyes. No
+other window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a
+great comfort to P&egrave;re Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest
+was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting
+in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was
+thinking of Ursin. The officers of the Government had not found him, nor
+had P&egrave;re Jerome seen him; yet he believed they had, in a certain
+indirect way, devised a simple project by which they could at any time
+"figs dad law," providing only that these Government officials would
+give over their search; for, though he had not seen the fugitive, Madame
+Delphine had seen him, and had been the vehicle of communication between
+them. There was an orange-tree, where a mocking-bird was wont to sing
+and a girl in white to walk, that the detectives wot not of. The law was
+to be "figs" by the departure of the three frequenters of the
+jasmine-scented garden in one ship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> to France, where the law offered no
+obstacles.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed moderately certain to those in search of Monsieur Vignevielle
+(and it was true) that Jean and Evariste were his harborers; but for all
+that the hunt, even for clues, was vain. The little banking
+establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the
+searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as
+well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the
+same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for his
+personal discovery.</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, pondering
+these matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk furthest
+from his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, he
+beheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, and
+knew instantly that it was Olive.</p>
+
+<p>She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I came to confession," she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement in
+her eyes shining through her veil, "but I find I am too late."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no too late or too early for that; I am always ready," said
+the priest. "But how is your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!&mdash;--"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice failed.</p>
+
+<p>"More trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, sir, I have <i>made</i> trouble. Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome, I am bringing so much
+trouble upon my poor mother!"</p>
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome moved slowly toward the house, with his eyes cast down, the
+veiled girl at his side.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not your fault," he presently said. And after another pause: "I
+thought it was all arranged."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up and could see, even through the veil, her crimson blush.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," she replied, in a low, despairing voice, dropping her face.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the difficulty?" asked the priest, stopping in the angle of the
+path, where it turned toward the front of the house.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from a
+crape-myrtle.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Thompson and her husband were at our house this morning. <i>He</i>
+had told Monsieur Thompson all about it. They were very kind to me at
+first, but they tried&mdash;&mdash;" She was weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"What did they try to do?" asked the priest.</p>
+
+<p>"They tried to make me believe he is insane."</p>
+
+<p>She succeeded in passing her handkerchief up under her veil.</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose then your poor mother grew angry, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and they became much more so, and said if we did not write, or
+send a writing, to <i>him</i>, within twenty-four hours, breaking the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Engagement," said P&egrave;re Jerome.</p>
+
+<p>"They would give him up to the Government. Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome, what shall I
+do? It is killing my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>She bowed her head and sobbed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where is your mother now?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has gone to see Monsieur Jean Thompson. She says she has a plan
+that will match them all. I do not know what it is. I begged her not to
+go; but oh, sir, <i>she is</i> crazy,&mdash;and&mdash;I am no better."</p>
+
+<p>"My poor child," said P&egrave;re Jerome, "what you seem to want is not
+absolution, but relief from persecution."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father, I have committed mortal sin,&mdash;I am guilty of pride and
+anger."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless," said the priest, starting toward his front gate, "we
+will put off your confession. Let it go until to-morrow morning; you
+will find me in my box just before mass; I will hear you then. My child,
+I know that in your heart, now, you begrudge the time it would take; and
+that is right. There are moments when we are not in place even on
+penitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother. Go
+you at once to your house; if she is there, comfort her as best you can,
+and <i>keep her in, if possible</i>, until I come. If she is not there, stay;
+leave me to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> find her; one of you, at least, must be where I can get
+word to you promptly. God comfort and uphold you. I hope you may find
+her at home; tell her, for me, not to fear,"&mdash;he lifted the
+gate-latch,&mdash;"that she and her daughter are of more value than many
+sparrows; that God's priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her to
+fix her trust in the great Husband of the Church, and she shall yet see
+her child receiving the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; I
+shall, in a few minutes, be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall find
+her, either there or wherever she is. Go; they shall not oppress you.
+Adieu!"</p>
+
+<p>A moment or two later he was in the street himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>BY AN OATH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>P&egrave;re Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight,
+had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start
+again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked,
+so suddenly as to startle him:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mich&eacute;, commin y&eacute; 'pell&eacute; la rie ici?</i>&mdash;how do they call this street
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than
+by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized
+the woman to whom he replied in her own <i>patois</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"</p>
+
+<p>She almost leaped from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome! <i>mo pas conn&eacute;</i>,&mdash;I dunno.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> You know w'ere's dad 'ouse
+of Mich&egrave; Jean Tomkin? <i>Mo courri 'ci, mo courri l&agrave;,&mdash;mo pas capale li
+trouv&eacute;</i>. I go (run) here&mdash;there&mdash;I cannot find it," she gesticulated.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean
+Thompson, Madame Delphine?"</p>
+
+<p>"I '<i>blige</i>' to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away,
+one foot planted forward with an air of excited preoccupation; "I god
+some' to tell 'im wad I '<i>blige</i>' to tell 'im!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! P&egrave;re Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de
+'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"</p>
+
+<p>Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to tell him?" asked the priest.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, P&egrave;re Jerome,"&mdash;in the Creole <i>patois</i> again,&mdash;"I am going to put an
+end to all this trouble&mdash;only I pray you do not ask me about it now;
+every minute is precious!"</p>
+
+<p>He could not withstand her look of entreaty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, and they went.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the
+Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Each
+had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the
+magnolias,&mdash;his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly
+shaded garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall,
+brick-pillared gate, his square of bright, red pavement on the
+turf-covered sidewalk, and his railed platform spanning the
+draining-ditch, with a pair of green benches, one on each edge, facing
+each other crosswise of the gutter. There, any sunset hour, you were
+sure to find the householder sitting beside his cool-robed matron, two
+or three slave nurses in white turbans standing at hand, and an excited
+throng of fair children, nearly all of a size.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, at a beckon or call, the parents on one side of the way would
+join those on the other, and the children and nurses of both families
+would be given the liberty of the op<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>posite platform and an ice-cream
+fund! Generally the parents chose the Thompson platform, its outlook
+being more toward the sunset.</p>
+
+<p>Such happened to be the arrangement this afternoon. The two husbands sat
+on one bench and their wives on the other, both pairs very quiet,
+waiting respectfully for the day to die, and exchanging only occasional
+comments on matters of light moment as they passed through the memory.
+During one term of silence Madame Varrillat, a pale, thin-faced, but
+cheerful-looking lady, touched Madame Thompson, a person of two and a
+half times her weight, on her extensive and snowy bare elbow, directing
+her attention obliquely up and across the road.</p>
+
+<p>About a hundred yards distant, in the direction of the river, was a
+long, pleasantly shaded green strip of turf, destined in time for a
+sidewalk. It had a deep ditch on the nearer side, and a fence of rough
+cypress palisades on the farther, and these were overhung, on the one
+hand, by a row of bitter orange-trees inside the inclosure, and, on the
+other, by a line of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> slanting china-trees along the outer edge of the
+ditch. Down this cool avenue two figures were approaching side by side.
+They had first attracted Madame Varrillat's notice by the bright play of
+sunbeams which, as they walked, fell upon them in soft, golden flashes
+through the chinks between the palisades.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from
+her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitering
+general:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>P&egrave;re Jerome et cette milatraise</i>."</p>
+
+<p>All eyes were bent toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"She walks like a man," said Madame Varrillat, in the language with
+which the conversation had opened.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervous
+excitement."</p>
+
+<p>Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of
+Louisiana,"&mdash;as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed.
+Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>plause he prized, and she
+answered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back and
+contriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded. Her laugh was
+musical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up and
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"P&egrave;re Jerome is talking to her," said one. The priest was at that moment
+endeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the four
+people who sat watching his approach. It was in the old strain:</p>
+
+<p>"Blame them one part, Madame Delphine, and their fathers, mothers,
+brothers, and fellow-citizens the other ninety-nine."</p>
+
+<p>But to everything she had the one amiable answer which P&egrave;re Jerome
+ignored:</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. <i>Tout &agrave;
+fait</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming here," said Madame Varrillat, half articulately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course," murmured another; and the four rose up, smiling
+courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with
+the priest.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No&mdash;P&egrave;re Jerome thanked them&mdash;he could not sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"This, I believe you know, Jean, is Madame Delphine&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The quadroone curtsied.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of mine," he added, smiling kindly upon her, and turning, with
+something imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has an
+important private matter to communicate."</p>
+
+<p>"To me?" asked Jean Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"To all of you; so I will&mdash;&mdash; Good-evening." He responded nothing to the
+expressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine. She murmured
+something.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! yes, certainly." He addressed the company: "She wishes me to speak
+for her veracity; it is unimpeachable. "Well, good-evening." He shook
+hands and departed.</p>
+
+<p>The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standing
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you something to say to us?" asked Jean Thompson, frowning at her
+law-defying bonnet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oui</i>," replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of
+one of the benches, "<i>mo oul&eacute; di' tou' &ccedil;'ose</i>"&mdash;I want to tell
+everything. "<i>Mich&eacute; Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune</i>"&mdash;the best
+man in the world; "<i>mo pas capabe li f&eacute; tracas</i>"&mdash;I cannot give him
+trouble. "<i>Mo pas capabe, non; m'ol&eacute; di' tous &ccedil;'ose</i>." She attempted to
+fan herself, her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested
+on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a seat," said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, starting
+from his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner of
+the bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two races
+could not both sit down at once&mdash;at least not in that public manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Your salts," said the physician to his wife. She handed the vial.
+Madame Delphine stood up again.</p>
+
+<p>"We will all go inside," said Madame Thompson, and they passed through
+the gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cool
+drawing-room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Madame Thompson herself bade the quadroone be seated.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Jean Thompson, as the rest took chairs.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>C'est drole</i>"&mdash;it's funny&mdash;said Madame Delphine, with a piteous effort
+to smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only to
+look and see. I mean about Olive." She loosed a button in the front of
+her dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herself
+never thought of it. She does not know a word."</p>
+
+<p>The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it to
+Jean Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ouala so popa</i>" said Madame Delphine. "That is her father."</p>
+
+<p>It went from one to another, exciting admiration and murmured praise.</p>
+
+<p>"She is the image of him," said Madame Thompson, in an austere
+under-tone, returning it to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Varrillat was watching Madame Delphine. She was very pale. She
+had passed a trembling hand into a pocket of her skirt, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> now drew
+out another picture, in a case the counterpart of the first. He reached
+out for it, and she handed it to him. He looked at it a moment, when his
+eyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Et l&agrave;</i>"&mdash;Madame Delphine's utterance failed&mdash;"<i>et l&agrave;, ouala sa
+moman</i>." (That is her mother.)</p>
+
+<p>The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. They
+were much impressed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true beyond a doubt!" muttered Madame Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Varrillat looked at her with astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"The proof is right there in the faces," said Madame Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! yes!" said Madame Delphine, excitedly; "the proof is there! You do
+not want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no better
+proof! That is all anybody could want! My God! you cannot help but see
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>Her manner was wild.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jean Thompson looked at her sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless you say you are willing to take your solemn oath to this."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, Mich&eacute; Thompson, <i>of course</i> I shall; you will make out the
+paper and I will swear before God that it is true! Only"&mdash;turning to the
+ladies&mdash;"do not tell Olive; she will never believe it. It will break her
+heart! It&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A servant came and spoke privately to Madame Thompson, who rose quickly
+and went to the hall. Madame Delphine continued, rising unconsciously:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I have had her with me from a baby. She knows no better. He
+brought her to me only two months old. Her mother had died in the ship,
+coming out here. He did not come straight from home here. His people
+never knew he was married!"</p>
+
+<p>The speaker looked around suddenly with a startled glance. There was a
+noise of excited speaking in the hall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is not true, Madame Thompson!" cried a girl's voice.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine's look became one of wildest distress and alarm, and she
+opened her lips in a vain attempt to utter some request, when Olive
+appeared a moment in the door, and then flew into her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother! my mother! my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Thompson, with tears in her eyes, tenderly drew them apart and
+let Madame Delphine down into her chair, while Olive threw herself upon
+her knees, continuing to cry:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my mother! Say you are my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Delphine looked an instant into the upturned face, and then
+turned her own away, with a long, low cry of pain, looked again, and
+laying both hands upon the suppliant's head, said:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh, ch&egrave;re piti &agrave; moin, to pa' ma fie!</i>" (Oh, my darling little one,
+you are not my daughter!) Her eyes closed, and her head sank back; the
+two gentlemen sprang to her assistance, and laid her upon a sofa
+unconscious.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When they brought her to herself, Olive was kneeling at her head
+silently weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Maman, ch&egrave;re maman</i>!" said the girl softly, kissing her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ma courri c'ez moin</i>" (I will go home), said the mother, drearily.</p>
+
+<p>"You will go home with me," said Madame Varrillat, with great kindness
+of manner&mdash;"just across the street here; I will take care of you till
+you feel better. And Olive will stay here with Madame Thompson. You will
+be only the width of the street apart."</p>
+
+<p>But Madame Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she would
+not allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two to
+sleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she would
+accept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of her
+kinspeople&mdash;man and wife&mdash;to come and make their dwelling with her.</p>
+
+<p>In course of time these two&mdash;a poor, timid, helpless, pair&mdash;fell heir to
+the premises. Their children had it after them; but, whether in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> those
+hands or these, the house had its habits and continued in them; and to
+this day the neighbors, as has already been said, rightly explain its
+close-sealed, uninhabited look by the all-sufficient statement that the
+inmates "is quadroons."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><a href="#CONTENTS">CHAPTER XV.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>KYRIE ELEISON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
+burning before the tabernacle in P&egrave;re Jerome's little church might have
+hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
+Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
+completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
+in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
+with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
+which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
+confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
+rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
+entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
+of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> presence
+that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
+would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
+and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.</p>
+
+<p>The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;
+then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some
+projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house
+of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and
+re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The
+search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would
+tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and
+belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an
+unexceptionable eyewitness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)
+Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding
+in the little church. Its scenes lingered before P&egrave;re Jerome's vision
+now&mdash;the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of
+man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and
+feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome
+eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots
+of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean
+Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his
+tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one
+expression of amiable consent; and last&mdash;yet first&mdash;one small, shrinking
+female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She
+sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the
+small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted
+face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the
+recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,
+nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired
+priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of
+invitation to her, given as the company left the church&mdash;"Come to
+confession this afternoon."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any
+glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from
+station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly
+going the way of the cross. Yet P&egrave;re Jerome tarried.</p>
+
+<p>"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would
+come."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a
+subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt
+noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,
+in the voice he had waited to hear:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>B&eacute;nissez-moin, mo' P&egrave;re, pa'ce que mo p&eacute;ch&eacute;</i>." (Bless me, father, for
+I have sinned.)</p>
+
+<p>He gave his blessing.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ainsi soit-il</i>&mdash;Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft
+accents of the Creole <i>patois</i>, continued:</p>
+
+<p>"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to
+blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
+Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> saints, that I have sinned
+exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, <i>through my fault, through my
+fault, through my most grievous fault</i>.' I confessed on Saturday, three
+weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance
+enjoined. Since then&mdash;&mdash;" There she stopped.</p>
+
+<p>There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she
+rose up again, and in a moment she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Olive <i>is</i> my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the
+half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She
+is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh Olive, my
+own daughter!"</p>
+
+<p>She ceased, and was still. P&egrave;re Jerome waited, but no sound came. He
+looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting
+on her arms&mdash;motionless.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not
+move.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and
+called her by name:</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there
+was life in the eyes&mdash;it glimmered&mdash;it vanished, and tears gushed from
+his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to
+heaven and cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable
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diff --git a/19703.txt b/19703.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Madame Delphine
+
+Author: George W. Cable
+
+Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19703]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAME DELPHINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                   MADAME DELPHINE
+                        BY
+                   GEORGE W. CABLE
+
+_Author of "Old Creole Days," "The Grandissimes," etc._
+
+                      NEW YORK
+                  COPYRIGHT
+         BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+              743 AND 745 BROADWAY
+                        1881
+              PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE & CO.,
+          NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                     CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.                           PAGE
+AN OLD HOUSE                          1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+MADAME DELPHINE                       7
+
+CHAPTER III.
+CAPITAINE LEMAITRE                   12
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THREE FRIENDS                        18
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE CAP FITS                         28
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+A CRY OF DISTRESS                    40
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+MICHE VIGNEVIELLE                    50
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+SHE                                  59
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+OLIVE                                68
+
+CHAPTER X.
+BIRDS                                74
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+FACE TO FACE                         82
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE MOTHER BIRD                      90
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+TRIBULATION                          99
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+BY AN OATH                          106
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+KYRIE ELEISON                       120
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+                  MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+AN OLD HOUSE.
+
+
+A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to
+and across Canal street, the central avenue of the city, and to that
+corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the
+arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant
+merchandise. The crowd--and if it is near the time of the carnival it
+will be great--will follow Canal street.
+
+But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of
+Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to
+call the Rue Royale. You will pass a few restaurants, a few auction
+rooms, a few furniture warehouses, and will hardly realize that you
+have left behind you the activity and clatter of a city of merchants
+before you find yourself in a region of architectural decrepitude, where
+an ancient and foreign-seeming domestic life, in second stories,
+overhangs the ruins of a former commercial prosperity, and upon
+everything has settled down a long Sabbath of decay. The vehicles in the
+street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are
+shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright
+mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great
+doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street
+windows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten,
+and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the older
+Franco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick betray a squalor almost oriental.
+
+Yet beauty lingers here. To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes
+you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched
+wicket in some _porte-cochere_--red-painted brick pavement, foliage of
+dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming
+parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten
+window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a
+glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and much
+similar rich antiquity.
+
+The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street
+a sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are putting
+you off your guard, there will pass you a woman--more likely two or
+three--of patrician beauty.
+
+Now, if you will go far enough down this old street, you will see, as
+you approach its intersection with----. Names in that region elude one
+like ghosts.
+
+However, as you begin to find the way a trifle more open, you will not
+fail to notice on the right-hand side, about midway of the square, a
+small, low, brick house of a story and a half, set out upon the
+sidewalk, as weather-beaten and mute as an aged beggar fallen asleep.
+Its corrugated roof of dull red tiles, sloping down toward you with an
+inward curve, is overgrown with weeds, and in the fall of the year is
+gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with
+your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten
+shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are
+shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated.
+Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the
+house has the lock-jaw. There are two doors, and to each a single
+chipped and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a
+line with the house, is a garden masked from view by a high, close
+board-fence. You may see the tops of its fruit-trees--pomegranate,
+peach, banana, fig, pear, and particularly one large orange, close by
+the fence, that must be very old.
+
+The residents over the narrow way, who live in a three-story house,
+originally of much pretension, but from whose front door hard times have
+removed almost all vestiges of paint, will tell you:
+
+"Yass, de 'ouse is in'abit; 'tis live in."
+
+And this is likely to be all the information you get--not that they
+would not tell, but they cannot grasp the idea that you wish to
+know--until, possibly, just as you are turning to depart, your
+informant, in a single word and with the most evident non-appreciation
+of its value, drops the simple key to the whole matter:
+
+"Dey's quadroons."
+
+He may then be aroused to mention the better appearance of the place in
+former years, when the houses of this region generally stood farther
+apart, and that garden comprised the whole square.
+
+Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as she
+was commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. That
+she owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceased
+companion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as to
+be, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject of
+gossip. She was never pointed out by the denizens of the quarter as a
+character, nor her house as a "feature." It would have passed all Creole
+powers of guessing to divine what you could find worthy of inquiry
+concerning a retired quadroon woman; and not the least puzzled of all
+would have been the timid and restive Madame Delphine herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+
+During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon caste
+of New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations--sprung, upon
+the one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial military
+service which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-American
+frontier life, and, upon the other hand, from comely Ethiopians culled
+out of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at the
+ship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still in
+their head-dresses,--these earlier generations, with scars of battle or
+private rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on the
+manumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was to
+result from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devoted
+to the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperian
+excellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to the
+present, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the _gens de
+couleur_ whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with
+"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing of
+toilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gate-way of
+their close-fenced gardens, and staring shrinkingly at you as you pass,
+like a nest of yellow kittens.
+
+But as the present century was in its second and third decades, the
+_quadroones_ (for we must contrive a feminine spelling to define the
+strict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor.
+Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessness
+of feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles of
+beauty,--for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them,--their
+fascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and pretty
+wit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste and
+elegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense they were
+indeed the sirens of this land, where it seemed "always afternoon"--a
+momentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, so
+beautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of special
+chapters by writers of the day more original than correct as social
+philosophers.
+
+The balls that were got up for them by the male _sang-pur_ were to that
+day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same
+nights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates of
+government,--municipal, state, federal,--those of the army, of the
+learned professions and of the clubs,--in short, the white male
+aristocracy in everything save the ecclesiastical desk,--were there.
+Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. No
+distinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!
+They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, and
+wore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likeness
+to innocence.
+
+Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger, could have told you all about
+it; though hardly, I suppose, without tears.
+
+But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendor
+was set, and her husband--let us call him so for her sake--was long
+dead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man of
+noble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we can
+do without.
+
+Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine's
+chief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked up
+in-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,--a very
+worthy person; and they were, may be, nearer correct than they knew.
+They rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a
+small, rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a
+gentle thoughtfulness of expression which it would take long to
+describe: call it a widow's look.
+
+In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made of
+a gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is gone now, and
+was out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron staple
+clasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.
+
+Which leads us to speak of another person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.
+
+
+He was one of those men that might be any age,--thirty, forty,
+forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and what
+was only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but also
+luminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterward
+remembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of his
+eyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the
+closest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not with
+the oddness that he who reared him had striven to produce.
+
+He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both in
+infancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa of
+the colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make "his
+boy" as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as it
+became a pure-blooded French Creole to be who could trace his pedigree
+back to the god Mars.
+
+"Remember, my boy," was the adjuration received by him as regularly as
+his waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever kept
+the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should
+bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from
+the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of
+gentle, _judicial_ benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house
+used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.
+His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial
+expression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or of
+large dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.
+
+And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of his
+grandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor was he
+loud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him to
+society; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and the
+old man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up to
+that pitch where he scorned to practice any vice, or any virtue, that
+did not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only were
+wanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old man
+died. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to
+see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride,
+of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
+
+The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority
+(say 1808 or 1812), only merchant blacksmiths, so to speak, a term
+intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands,
+who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and
+moved in society among its autocrats. But they were full of
+possibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with already a
+pronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivals
+they would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac and
+Barataria.
+
+Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had not
+only the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turn
+for accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with an
+enterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himself
+with the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in the
+Lafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with their
+shining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ring
+with the stroke of their hammers; but as a--there was no occasion to
+mince the word in those days--smuggler.
+
+Smuggler--patriot--where was the difference? Beyond the ken of a
+community to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long been
+merely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into the
+all-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come under a
+kinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customs
+were dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man be
+more than Capitaine Lemaitre was--the soul of honor, the pink of
+courtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of the
+elephant; frank--the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: his
+paper was good in Toulouse street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he
+was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimer
+virtues.
+
+Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history.
+Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted in
+their interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to grow
+disreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made upon
+them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. The
+business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising
+Lafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering."
+
+Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.
+Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered
+money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then
+hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they
+had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the
+market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were
+received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the
+battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--here
+tradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.
+
+Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among
+the missing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THREE FRIENDS.
+
+
+The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was
+a little man fondly known among his people as Pere Jerome. He was a
+Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling
+was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,
+close fence, and reached by a narrow outdoor stair from the green batten
+gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated behind
+by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of the
+chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in benediction.
+The name of the street--ah! there is where light is wanting. Save the
+Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of record concerning
+churches at that time, though they were springing up here and there.
+All there is certainty of is that Pere Jerome's frame chapel was some
+little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have survived the passage of
+years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory" "so as by fire." His
+parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell distinctly there the
+vow of poverty. His bedchamber was bare and clean, and the bed in it
+narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room that would tempt
+a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was small, but
+stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of fine wood,
+and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling pleasantry. His
+mother's and sister's doing, Pere Jerome would explain; they would not
+permit this apartment--or department--to suffer. Therein, as well as in
+the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort, that explained
+interestingly the Pere Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile.
+
+In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes to
+sit with Pere Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached--one,
+Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his
+brother-in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest
+manhood, and both, like the little priest himself, the regretful
+rememberers of a fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like Pere
+Jerome, they had come, through years, to the thick of life's
+conflicts,--the priest's brother-in-law a physician, the other an
+attorney, and brother-in-law to the lonely wanderer,--yet they loved to
+huddle around this small board, and be boys again in heart while men in
+mind. Neither one nor another was leader. In earlier days they had
+always yielded to him who no longer met with them a certain
+chieftainship, and they still thought of him and talked of him, and, in
+their conjectures, groped after him, as one of whom they continued to
+expect greater things than of themselves.
+
+They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing,
+speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way,
+the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of
+the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the
+lawyer, who was half Americain; but running sometimes into English and
+sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.
+
+Pere Jerome advanced an idea something like this:
+
+"It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality
+of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know
+how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or
+our fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is a
+community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human since
+Adam--nay, nor Adam himself--ever sinned entirely to himself. And so I
+never am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel my
+conscience pointing at me as one of the accessories."
+
+"In a word," said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we are
+partly to blame for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?"
+
+Father Jerome smiled.
+
+"No; a man cannot plead so in his own defense; our first father tried
+that, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absent
+friend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as
+partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser
+care and with better companions, how different might he not have been!
+How can _we_ speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from
+that name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his
+speech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Pere Jerome, 'ow dat is a
+dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Aint it?'
+'Ah, Madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I'ope de good God will fo'give me
+an' you fo' dat!'"
+
+Jean Thompson answered quickly:
+
+"You should not have let her say that."
+
+"_Mais_, fo' w'y?"
+
+"Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the
+more to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have
+said,"--the attorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has
+merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the
+republic of Carthagena!'"
+
+"_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his
+brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.
+
+"Why not?" demanded Thompson.
+
+"Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand."
+
+Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else,
+when Pere Jerome spoke.
+
+"I will tell you what I could have said. I could have said: 'Madame,
+yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him. He stum'le in de dark; but dat good God
+will mek it a _mo' terrible_ fo' dat man, oohever he is, w'at put 'at
+light out!'"
+
+"But how do you know he is a pirate?" demanded Thompson, aggressively.
+
+"How do we know?" said the little priest, returning to French. "Ah!
+there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that come
+to us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba,
+of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy and
+gentility----"*
+
+[*See Gazettes of the period.]
+
+"And whose name is Lafitte," said the obstinate attorney.
+
+"And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte," insisted Pere Jerome.
+
+"Daz troo, Jean," said Doctor Varrillat. "We hall know daz troo."
+
+Pere Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air of
+secrecy, in French.
+
+"You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. You
+have heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of the
+ship himself drove them off."
+
+"An incredible story," said Thompson.
+
+"But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. There
+was on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck,
+where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautiful
+than ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a small
+missal spread open, and, her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commanded
+him to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood
+gazing on her face, which did not quail; and then, with a low bow, said:
+'Give me this book and I will do your bidding.' She gave him the book
+and bade him leave the ship, and he left it unmolested."
+
+Pere Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again,
+once or twice, with his dimpled smile.
+
+"But he speaks English, they say," said Jean Thompson.
+
+"He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us," said the priest.
+
+"But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte."
+
+"Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your brother-in-law, Jean Thompson!
+It is your wife's brother! Not Lafitte, but" (softly) "Lemaitre!
+Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!"
+
+The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on either
+face, and presently broke into a laugh.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dad
+cog-an'-bull fo' yo' negs summon."
+
+Pere Jerome's eyes lighted up--
+
+"I goin' to do it!"
+
+"I tell you," said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, "iv
+dad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyare
+nut'n fo' doze creed; _he fall in love_!"
+
+Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to Pere
+Jerome:
+
+"But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e kyare fo' dad creed."
+
+Pere Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkable
+effects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find him
+attributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find for
+some a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was but
+one of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity and
+incredible eccentricity Pere Jerome had a regular correspondent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE CAP FITS.
+
+
+About two months after the conversation just given, and therefore
+somewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, Pere Jerome
+delighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcement
+that he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the following
+Sabbath--not there, but in the cathedral.
+
+He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there were
+two or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and said
+he would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of the
+Bible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet "the common people heard
+him gladly." When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smiled
+a little and answered his informant,--whom he knew to be one of the
+whisperers himself,--laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder:
+
+"Father Murphy,"--or whatever the name was,--"your words comfort me."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Because--'_Vae quum benedixerint mihi homines_!'"*
+
+[*"Woe unto me, when all men speak well of me!"]
+
+The appointed morning, when it came, was one of those exquisite days in
+which there is such a universal harmony, that worship rises from the
+heart like a spring.
+
+"Truly," said Pere Jerome to the companion who was to assist him in the
+mass, "this is a Sabbath day which we do not have to make holy, but only
+to _keep_ so."
+
+May be it was one of the secrets of Pere Jerome's success as a preacher,
+that he took more thought as to how he should feel, than as to what he
+should say.
+
+The cathedral of those days was called a very plain old pile, boasting
+neither beauty nor riches; but to Pere Jerome it was very lovely; and
+before its homely altar, not homely to him, in the performance of those
+solemn offices, symbols of heaven's mightiest truths, in the hearing of
+the organ's harmonies, and the yet more eloquent interunion of human
+voices in the choir, in overlooking the worshipping throng which knelt
+under the soft, chromatic lights, and in breathing the sacrificial odors
+of the chancel, he found a deep and solemn joy; and yet I guess the
+finest thought of his soul the while was one that came thrice and again:
+
+"Be not deceived, Pere Jerome, because saintliness of feeling is easy
+here; you are the same priest who overslept this morning, and overate
+yesterday, and will, in some way, easily go wrong to-morrow and the day
+after."
+
+He took it with him when--the _Veni Creator_ sung--he went into the
+pulpit. Of the sermon he preached, tradition has preserved for us only a
+few brief sayings, but they are strong and sweet.
+
+"My friends," he said,--this was near the beginning,--"the angry words
+of God's book are very merciful--they are meant to drive us home; but
+the tender words, my friends, they are sometimes terrible! Notice these,
+the tenderest words of the tenderest prayer that ever came from the lips
+of a blessed martyr--the dying words of the holy Saint Stephen, 'Lord,
+lay not this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dreadful in that?
+Read it thus: 'Lord, lay not this sin to _their_ charge.' Not to the
+charge of them who stoned him? To whose charge then? Go ask the holy
+Saint Paul. Three years afterward, praying in the temple at Jerusalem,
+he answered that question: 'I stood by and consented.' He answered for
+himself only; but the Day must come when all that wicked council that
+sent Saint Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of Jerusalem,
+must hold up the hand and say: 'We, also, Lord--we stood by.' Ah!
+friends, under the simpler meaning of that dying saint's prayer for the
+pardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth that we all have a
+share in one another's sins."
+
+Thus Pere Jerome touched his key-note. All that time has spared us
+beside may be given in a few sentences.
+
+"Ah!" he cried once, "if it were merely my own sins that I had to answer
+for, I might hold up my head before the rest of mankind; but no, no, my
+friends--we cannot look each other in the face, for each has helped the
+other to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of common
+disgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despair
+ought to bind us together and forever silence the voice of scorn!"
+
+And again, this:
+
+"Even in the promise to Noe, not again to destroy the race with a flood,
+there is a whisper of solemn warning. The moral account of the
+antediluvians was closed off and the balance brought down in the year of
+the deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on, and
+the blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop it
+till the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come at
+last, when thou wilt destroy the world, and stop the interest on my
+account!"
+
+It was about at this point that Pere Jerome noticed, more particularly
+than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a
+small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who
+gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress,
+seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were
+scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small,
+by gloves.
+
+"Quadroones," thought he, with a stir of deep pity.
+
+Once, as he uttered some stirring word, he saw the mother and daughter
+(if such they were), while they still bent their gaze upon him, clasp
+each other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at these
+words:
+
+"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans
+to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the _nots_
+rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to
+purgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who
+strew it with thorns and briers!"
+
+The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. He
+glanced that way again as he said:
+
+"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaven
+this day had they never had a father and mother, but had got their
+religious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisiana
+this holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"
+
+The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged
+the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full
+of tears.
+
+"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side
+aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other,
+"who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only
+principle of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even
+gain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance to
+nature, defiance to reason; defiance and defiance and defiance."
+
+"He is going to tell it!" murmured Evariste to Jean.
+
+"This man," continued Pere Jerome, "became a smuggler and at last a
+pirate in the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, lay not that sin to his charge
+alone! But a strange thing followed. Being in command of men of a sort
+that to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he now
+found himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemn
+companionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm, the
+heavens by day, the heavens by night. My friends, that was the first
+time in his life that he ever found himself in really good company.
+
+"Now, this man had a great aptness for accounts. He had kept them--had
+rendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, and
+closed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result is
+plain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holy
+spectacle of the starry deep above and the watery deep below, was sure
+to find himself, sooner or later, mastered by the conviction that the
+great Author of this majestic creation keeps account of it; and one
+night there came to him, like a spirit walking on the sea, the awful,
+silent question: 'My account with God--how does it stand?' Ah! friends,
+that is a question which the book of nature does not answer.
+
+"Did I say the book of nature is a catechism? Yes. But, after it answers
+the first question with 'God,' nothing but questions follow; and so, one
+day, this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one little book which
+answered those questions. God help him to understand it! and God help
+you, monsieur and you, madame, sitting here in your _smuggled clothes_,
+to beat upon the breast with me and cry, 'I, too, Lord--I, too, stood by
+and consented.'"
+
+Pere Jerome had not intended these for his closing words; but just
+there, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, a
+man rose slowly from his seat and regarded him steadily with a kind,
+bronzed, sedate face, and the sermon, as if by a sign of command, was
+ended. While the _Credo_ was being chanted he was still there; but when,
+a moment after its close, the eye of Pere Jerome returned in that
+direction, his place was empty.
+
+As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was
+turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he
+just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him
+to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole patois,
+saying, with some timid haste:
+
+"Good-morning, Pere--Pere Jerome; Pere Jerome, we thank the good God for
+that sermon."
+
+"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had
+noticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was a
+beautiful figure, but the slight effort of Pere Jerome's kind eyes to
+see through the veil was vain. He would presently have passed on, but
+the one who had spoken before said:
+
+"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."
+
+"Yes; I am going this way to see a sick person."
+
+The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and
+timidity.
+
+"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good
+God," she said.
+
+Pere Jerome smiled:
+
+"God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it,
+just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have
+added that he loved to do it, quite as much.
+
+It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get
+courage to ask it.
+
+"You have a little boy?" asked the priest.
+
+"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Then
+she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness
+asked:
+
+"Pere Jerome, what was the name of that man?"
+
+"His name?" said the priest. "You wish to know his name?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur" (or _Miche_, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful
+story." The speaker's companion looked another way.
+
+"His name," said Father Jerome,--"some say one name and some another.
+Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him? And
+do you go to my church, Madame----?"
+
+"No, Miche; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"--she
+choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this
+mark of confidence--"is Madame Delphine--Delphine Carraze."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A CRY OF DISTRESS.
+
+
+Pere Jerome's smile and exclamation, as some days later he entered his
+parlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative of
+hearty greeting rather than surprise.
+
+"Madame Delphine!"
+
+Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for though
+another Sunday had not yet come around, the slim, smallish figure
+sitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire,
+which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was Delphine
+Carraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over and
+above an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he had
+recognized her voice.
+
+She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then looked to the floor, and
+began a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiled
+weakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note,
+frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes, while shadows of
+anxiety and smiles of apology chased each other rapidly across her face.
+She was trying to ask his advice.
+
+"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
+downcast eyes:
+
+"You know,--probably I should have said this in the confessional, but--
+
+"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
+perhaps; you want a friend."
+
+She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.
+
+"I"--she ceased. "I have done a"--she dropped her head and shook it
+despondingly--"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
+turned away her face.
+
+Pere Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
+evident intention of speaking at length.
+
+"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
+lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
+murmured--"I fell in love."
+
+She said no more, and by and by Pere Jerome replied:
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
+love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
+smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
+answer for, and yet I think God may have said: 'She is a quadroone; all
+the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
+her--almost compulsory,--charge it to account of whom it may concern."
+
+"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it might
+fall upon--" Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips and
+nervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good--as good as
+the law would let him be--better, indeed, for he left me property, which
+really the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter very
+much. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error and
+asking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to them when
+he died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteen
+years. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. And
+then--at last--" Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligently
+with her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of her
+lap.
+
+"At last your mother-heart conquered," said Pere Jerome.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was she
+did not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she asked
+me to let her come--." The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "I
+know it was wicked, but--I said, come."
+
+The tears dripped through her hands upon her dress.
+
+"Was it she who was with you last Sunday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And now you do not know what to do with her?"
+
+"_Ah! c'est ca, oui!_--that is it."
+
+"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Oh, thank God, no! you would never believe she was my daughter; she is
+white and beautiful!"
+
+"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."
+
+"Alas! yes."
+
+Pere Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
+out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.
+
+"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
+Delphine without changing his attitude.
+
+Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.
+
+"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
+speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
+dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
+which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
+happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
+cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which they
+have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.
+
+"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
+to the worst.
+
+The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief,
+with the stifled cry:
+
+"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine," said Pere Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is
+sure: we _must_ find a way out of this trouble."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"
+
+"But it must be!" said the priest.
+
+"But how shall it be?" asked the desponding woman.
+
+"Ah!" said Pere Jerome, with a shrug, "God knows."
+
+"Yes," said the quadroone, with a quick sparkle in her gentle eye; "and
+I know, if God would tell anybody, He would tell you!"
+
+The priest smiled and rose.
+
+"Do you think so? Well, leave me to think of it. I will ask Him."
+
+"And He will tell you!" she replied. "And He will bless you!" She rose
+and gave her hand. As she withdrew it she smiled. "I had such a strange
+dream," she said, backing toward the door.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes. I got my troubles all mixed up with your sermon. I dreamed I made
+that pirate the guardian of my daughter."
+
+Pere Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.
+
+"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this
+country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think
+that one is, without doubt, the best."
+
+"Without doubt," echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawing
+backward. Pere Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.
+
+The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon the
+threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting
+from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair
+where the hat had covered it and dark below, gently stroking back his
+very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while
+Pere Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger
+hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's
+eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor
+were of white duck.
+
+"Well, Pere Jerome," she said, in a hurried under-tone, "I am just going
+to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"
+
+"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, Madame
+Carraze."
+
+And as she departed, the priest turned to the new-comer and extended
+both hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been
+addressing the quadroone:
+
+"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"
+
+They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing
+with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often
+mentioning Evariste and often Jean.
+
+Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to Pere
+Jerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. She
+passed through the one and with downcast eyes was standing at the other,
+her hand lifted to knock, when the door was drawn open and the white
+duck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonade
+suit.
+
+"Yes," the voice of Pere Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in the
+door--"Ah! Madame--"
+
+"I lef' my para_sol_," said Madame Delphine, in English.
+
+There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere down
+under her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventional
+prohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, and
+carried a parasol.
+
+Pere Jerome turned and brought it.
+
+He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor had
+disappeared.
+
+"Madame Delphine, you saw dat man?"
+
+"Not his face."
+
+"You couldn' billieve me iv I tell you w'at dat man pur_pose_ to do!"
+
+"Is dad so, Pere Jerome?"
+
+"He's goin' to hopen a bank!"
+
+"Ah!" said Madame Delphine, seeing she was expected to be astonished.
+
+Pere Jerome evidently longed to tell something that was best kept
+secret; he repressed the impulse, but his heart had to say something. He
+threw forward one hand and looking pleasantly at Madame Delphine, with
+his lips dropped apart, clenched his extended hand and thrusting it
+toward the ground, said in a solemn under-tone:
+
+"He is God's own banker, Madame Delphine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MICHE VIGNEVIELLE.
+
+
+Madame Delphine sold one of the corner lots of her property. She had
+almost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequence
+of the sale, she had a few large bank-notes sewed up in her petticoat,
+and one day--may be a fortnight after her tearful interview with Pere
+Jerome--she found it necessary to get one of these changed into small
+money. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the other
+for a bank which was not in that street at all, when she noticed a small
+sign hanging above a door, bearing the name "Vignevielle." She looked
+in. Pere Jerome had told her (when she had gone to him to ask where she
+should apply for change) that if she could only wait a few days, there
+would be a new concern opened in Toulouse street,--it really seemed as
+if Vignevielle was the name, if she could judge; it looked to be, and it
+was, a private banker's,--"U. L. Vignevielle's," according to a larger
+inscription which met her eyes as she ventured in. Behind the counter,
+exchanging some last words with a busy-mannered man outside, who, in
+withdrawing, seemed bent on running over Madame Delphine, stood the man
+in blue cottonade, whom she had met in Pere Jerome's door-way. Now, for
+the first time, she saw his face, its strong, grave, human kindness
+shining softly on each and every bronzed feature. The recognition was
+mutual. He took pains to speak first, saying, in a re-assuring tone, and
+in the language he had last heard her use:
+
+"'Ow I kin serve you, Madame?"
+
+"Iv you pliz, to mague dad bill change, Miche."
+
+She pulled from her pocket a wad of dark cotton handkerchief, from which
+she began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had an
+uncommonly sweet voice, and it seemed so to strike Monsieur Vignevielle.
+He spoke to her once or twice more, as he waited on her, each time in
+English, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, and
+presently, as she turned to go, he said:
+
+"Madame Carraze!"
+
+She started a little, but bethought herself instantly that he had heard
+her name in Pere Jerome's parlor. The good father might even have said a
+few words about her after her first departure; he had such an
+overflowing heart.
+
+"Madame Carraze," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "doze kine of note wad you
+'_an_' me juz now is bein' contrefit. You muz tek kyah from doze kine of
+note. You see--" He drew from his cash-drawer a note resembling the one
+he had just changed for her, and proceeded to point out certain tests of
+genuineness. The counterfeit, he said, was so and so.
+
+"Bud," she exclaimed, with much dismay, "dad was de manner of my bill!
+Id muz be--led me see dad bill wad I give you,--if you pliz, Miche."
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle turned to engage in conversation with an employe
+and a new visitor, and gave no sign of hearing Madame Delphine's voice.
+She asked a second time, with like result, lingered timidly, and as he
+turned to give his attention to a third visitor, reiterated:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle, I wizh you pliz led----"
+
+"Madame Carraze," he said, turning so suddenly as to make the frightened
+little woman start, but extending his palm with a show of frankness, and
+assuming a look of benignant patience, "'ow I kin fine doze note now,
+mongs' all de rez? Iv you pliz nod to mague me doze troub'."
+
+The dimmest shadow of a smile seemed only to give his words a more
+kindly authoritative import, and as he turned away again with a manner
+suggestive of finality, Madame Delphine found no choice but to depart.
+But she went away loving the ground beneath the feet of Monsieur U. L.
+Vignevielle.
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome!" she exclaimed in the corrupt French of her caste,
+meeting the little father on the street a few days later, "you told the
+truth that day in your parlor. _Mo conne li a c't heure_. I know him
+now; he is just what you called him."
+
+"Why do you not make him _your_ banker, also, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I have done so this very day!" she replied, with more happiness in her
+eyes than Pere Jerome had ever before seen there.
+
+"Madame Delphine," he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make _him_ your
+daughter's guardian; for myself, being a priest, it would not be best;
+but ask him; I believe he will not refuse you."
+
+Madame Delphine's face grew still brighter as he spoke.
+
+"It was in my mind," she said.
+
+Yet to the timorous Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after
+another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks
+elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at
+length, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind Monsieur
+Vignevielle's banking-room,--he sitting beside a table, and she, more
+timid and demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door,--she
+said, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seem
+unimportant, and yet with some tremor of voice:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle, I bin maguing my will." (Having commenced their
+acquaintance in English, they spoke nothing else.)
+
+"'Tis a good idy," responded the banker.
+
+"I kin mague you de troub' to kib dad will fo' me, Miche Vignevielle?"
+
+"Yez."
+
+She looked up with grateful re-assurance; but her eyes dropped again as
+she said:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle----" Here she choked, and began her peculiar motion
+of laying folds in the skirt of her dress, with trembling fingers. She
+lifted her eyes, and as they met the look of deep and placid kindness
+that was in his face, some courage returned, and she said:
+
+"Miche."
+
+"Wad you wand?" asked he, gently.
+
+"If it arrive to me to die----"
+
+"Yez?"
+
+Her words were scarcely audible:
+
+"I wand you teg kyah my lill' girl."
+
+"You 'ave one lill' gal, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She nodded with her face down.
+
+"An' you godd some mo' chillen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I nevva know dad, Madame Carraze. She's a lill' small gal?"
+
+Mothers forget their daughters' stature. Madame Delphine said:
+
+"Yez."
+
+For a few moments neither spoke, and then Monsieur Vignevielle said:
+
+"I will do dad."
+
+"Lag she been you' h-own?" asked the mother, suffering from her own
+boldness.
+
+"She's a good lill' chile, eh?"
+
+"Miche, she's a lill' hangel!" exclaimed Madame Delphine, with a look of
+distress.
+
+"Yez; I teg kyah 'v 'er, lag my h-own. I mague you dad promise."
+
+"But----" There was something still in the way, Madame Delphine seemed
+to think.
+
+The banker waited in silence.
+
+"I suppose you will want to see my lill' girl?"
+
+He smiled; for she looked at him as if she would implore him to decline.
+
+"Oh, I tek you' word fo' hall dad, Madame Carraze. It mague no differend
+wad she loog lag; I don' wan' see 'er."
+
+Madame Delphine's parting smile--she went very shortly--was gratitude
+beyond speech.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle returned to the seat he had left, and resumed a
+newspaper,--the _Louisiana Gazette_ in all probability,--which he had
+laid down upon Madame Delphine's entrance. His eyes fell upon a
+paragraph which had previously escaped his notice. There they rested.
+Either he read it over and over unwearyingly, or he was lost in thought.
+Jean Thompson entered.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Thompson, in a suppressed tone, bending a little across
+the table, and laying one palm upon a package of papers which lay in the
+other, "it is completed. You could retire from your business any day
+inside of six hours without loss to anybody." (Both here and elsewhere,
+let it be understood that where good English is given the words were
+spoken in good French.)
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle raised his eyes and extended the newspaper to the
+attorney, who received it and read the paragraph. Its substance was that
+a certain vessel of the navy had returned from a cruise in the Gulf of
+Mexico and Straits of Florida, where she had done valuable service
+against the pirates--having, for instance, destroyed in one fortnight in
+January last twelve pirate vessels afloat, two on the stocks, and three
+establishments ashore.
+
+"United States brig _Porpoise_," repeated Jean Thompson. "Do you know
+her?"
+
+"We are acquainted," said Monsieur Vignevielle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+SHE.
+
+
+A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neat
+garb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, a
+silent bow, a new sign in the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane,
+walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal
+Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti--these were
+all; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the return
+of Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and early
+life.
+
+But we hardly give the event its right name. It was Capitaine Lemaitre
+who had disappeared; it was Monsieur Vignevielle who had come back. The
+pleasures, the haunts, the companions, that had once held out their
+charms to the impetuous youth, offered no enticements to Madame
+Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his
+grandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above low
+indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves
+through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it
+loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all.
+Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.
+
+"It is the right way," he said to Pere Jerome, the day we saw him there.
+"Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his
+executor."
+
+"He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently.
+
+"On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f."
+
+Evariste spoke.
+
+"Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go
+crazy."
+
+"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy.
+"You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper
+paragraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I
+claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship.' He is
+crazy."
+
+Of course Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it,
+and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the _banquettes_ and at the clubs;
+and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover
+was a trifle snarled in his top-hamper.
+
+This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricities
+of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactions
+in business.
+
+"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not running
+a charitable institution!"
+
+"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversation
+ceased.
+
+"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the
+attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of
+it?"
+
+"And make the end worse than the beginning," said the banker, with a
+gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.
+
+"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he
+seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those
+who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but
+those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or
+gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you
+might see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane. It was very
+singular.
+
+He walked much alone after dark. The _guichinangoes_ (garroters, we
+might say), at those times the city's particular terror by night, never
+crossed his path. He was one of those men for whom danger appears to
+stand aside.
+
+One beautiful summer night, when all nature seemed hushed in ecstasy,
+the last blush gone that told of the sun's parting, Monsieur
+Vignevielle, in the course of one of those contemplative, uncompanioned
+walks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more open
+portion of the Rue Royale, with a step which was soft without intention,
+occasionally touching the end of his stout cane gently to the ground and
+looking upward among his old acquaintances, the stars.
+
+It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the sterner
+energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and the
+fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters and
+escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush and
+sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by
+the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still
+again, as if the breezes lifted their expectant pinions and lowered them
+once more, awaiting the rising of the moon in a silence which fell upon
+the fields, the roads, the gardens, the walls, and the suburban and
+half-suburban streets, like a pause in worship. And anon she rose.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part of
+the town, and he was presently passing along a high, close, board-fence,
+on the right-hand side of the way, when, just within this inclosure, and
+almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a
+mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. It
+may have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted the
+passer's attention, but he paused and looked up.
+
+And then he remarked something more,--that the air where he had stopped
+was filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. He
+looked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate just
+there. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about it
+in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An
+iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the
+gate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing
+business--an eye which had later received high training as an eye for
+fastenings--fell upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the wood
+had shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though without
+falling out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand
+upon the cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was
+drawn partly open.
+
+At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or
+gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of
+whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had
+met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of
+destruction.
+
+The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within the
+opening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, a
+broad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-trees
+and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell,
+the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds
+stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There,
+very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had
+tempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned
+from him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the
+right, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely
+a door of the house might open upon it. While he still looked, there
+fell upon his ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on the
+broken shells,--one only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had
+he mistaken? No. The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale
+glimpse of robes came through the tangle, and then, plainly to view,
+appeared an outline--a presence--a form--a spirit--a girl!
+
+From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
+medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
+waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
+heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
+a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
+temples,--her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down to
+guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
+grass,--straight down the path she came!
+
+Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
+deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
+vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
+the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
+tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _Can it be?_ Is this
+his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to M. Vignevielle the
+unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is
+now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will
+shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do
+that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck
+and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mocking-bird cannot
+withhold; he breaks into song--she turns--she turns her face--it is she,
+it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+OLIVE.
+
+
+She was just passing seventeen--that beautiful year when the heart of
+the maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,
+while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation of
+womanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair were
+fair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,
+lacklustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,
+no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face that
+seemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for the
+large, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingled
+dreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color of
+shell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which took
+its place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.
+
+This side door-way which led from Madame Delphine's house into her
+garden was overarched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice,
+and partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned
+a rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when the
+twilights were balmy or the moon was bright.
+
+"_Cherie_," said Madame Delphine on one of these evenings, "why do you
+dream so much?"
+
+She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughter
+had easily learned.
+
+The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped her
+glance to the hands in her own lap, which were listlessly handling the
+end of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Her
+dress was white again; this was but one night since that in which
+Monsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He had
+not been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leaving
+it as he had found it.
+
+Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in the
+moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste
+drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was
+again laying aside to re-assume the mediaeval bondage of the stay-lace;
+for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine
+and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,
+of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her
+hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle
+admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.
+
+Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, and
+on that account repeated her question:
+
+"What are you thinking about?"
+
+The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,
+bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.
+
+The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the silence which followed, a
+daughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, and
+Olive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:
+
+"I was thinking of Pere Jerome's sermon."
+
+Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the day
+it was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever
+afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of
+secondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon.
+
+Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own;
+but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question:
+
+"Do you think, _maman_, that Pere Jerome knows it was I who gave that
+missal?"
+
+"No," said Madame Delphine, "I am sure he does not."
+
+Another question came more timidly:
+
+"Do--do you think he knows _him_?"
+
+"Yes, I do. He said in his sermon he did."
+
+Both remained for a long time very still, watching the moon gliding in
+and through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughter
+spoke again.
+
+"I wish I was Pere--I wish I was as good as Pere Jerome."
+
+"My child," said Madame Delphine, her tone betraying a painful summoning
+of strength to say what she had lacked the courage to utter,--"my child,
+I pray the good God you will not let your heart go after one whom you
+may never see in this world!"
+
+The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her arms
+about her mother's neck, laid her cheek upon it for a moment, and then,
+feeling the maternal tear, lifted her lips, and, kissing her, said:
+
+"I will not! I will not!"
+
+But the voice was one, not of willing consent, but of desperate
+resolution.
+
+"It would be useless, anyhow," said the mother, laying her arm around
+her daughter's waist.
+
+Olive repeated the kiss, prolonging it passionately.
+
+"I have nobody but you," murmured the girl; "I am a poor quadroone!"
+
+She threw back her plaited hair for a third embrace, when a sound in the
+shrubbery startled them.
+
+"_Qui ci ca?_" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as the two
+stood up, holding to each other.
+
+No answer.
+
+"It was only the dropping of a twig," she whispered, after a long
+holding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred it
+everywhere.
+
+It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course of
+time, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, and
+fearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BIRDS.
+
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle looked in at no more doors or windows; but if the
+disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to
+notice which were especially bad,--for instance, wakefulness. At
+well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not
+patrol singly, would meet him on his slow, unmolested, sky-gazing walk.
+
+"Seems to enjoy it," said Jean Thompson; "the worst sort of evidence. If
+he showed distress of mind, it would not be so bad; but his
+calmness,--ugly feature."
+
+The attorney had held his ground so long that he began really to believe
+it was tenable.
+
+By day, it is true, Monsieur Vignevielle was at his post in his quiet
+"bank." Yet here, day by day, he was the source of more and more vivid
+astonishment to those who held preconceived notions of a banker's
+calling. As a banker, at least, he was certainly out of balance; while
+as a promenader, it seemed to those who watched him that his ruling idea
+had now veered about, and that of late he was ever on the quiet alert,
+not to find, but to evade, somebody.
+
+"Olive, my child," whispered Madame Delphine one morning, as the pair
+were kneeling side by side on the tiled floor of the church, "yonder is
+Miche Vignevielle! If you will only look at once--he is just passing a
+little in----. Ah, much too slow again; he stepped out by the side
+door."
+
+The mother thought it a strange providence that Monsieur Vignevielle
+should always be disappearing whenever Olive was with her.
+
+One early dawn, Madame Delphine, with a small empty basket on her arm,
+stepped out upon the _banquette_ in front of her house, shut and
+fastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence you
+could faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the songs of the
+Gascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of the
+distant market-house. She was going to see if she could find some birds
+for Olive,--the child's appetite was so poor; and, as she was out, she
+would drop an early prayer at the cathedral. Faith and works.
+
+"One must venture something, sometimes, in the cause of religion,"
+thought she, as she started timorously on her way. But she had not gone
+a dozen steps before she repented her temerity. There was some one
+behind her.
+
+There should not be anything terrible in a footstep merely because it is
+masculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider that.
+A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had found a
+shoe-track in the garden. She had not disclosed the discovery to Olive,
+but she had hardly closed her eyes the whole night.
+
+The step behind her now might be the fall of that very shoe. She
+quickened her pace, but did not leave the sound behind. She hurried
+forward almost at a run; yet it was still there--no farther, no nearer.
+Two frights were upon her at once--one for herself, another for Olive,
+left alone in the house; but she had but the one prayer--"God protect my
+child!" After a fearful time she reached a place of safety, the
+cathedral. There, panting, she knelt long enough to know the pursuit
+was, at least, suspended, and then arose, hoping and praying all the
+saints that she might find the way clear for her return in all haste to
+Olive.
+
+She approached a different door from that by which she had entered, her
+eyes in all directions and her heart in her throat.
+
+"Madame Carraze."
+
+She started wildly and almost screamed, though the voice was soft and
+mild. Monsieur Vignevielle came slowly forward from the shade of the
+wall. They met beside a bench, upon which she dropped her basket.
+
+"Ah, Miche Vignevielle, I thang de good God to mid you!"
+
+"Is dad so, Madame Carraze? Fo' w'y dad is?"
+
+"A man was chase me all dad way since my 'ouse!"
+
+"Yes, Madame, I sawed him."
+
+"You sawed 'im? Oo it was?"
+
+"'Twas only one man wad is a foolizh. De people say he's crezzie.
+_Mais_, he don' goin' to meg you no 'arm."
+
+"But I was scare' fo' my lill' girl."
+
+"Noboddie don' goin' trouble you' lill' gal, Madame Carraze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked up into the speaker's strangely kind and patient
+eyes, and drew sweet re-assurance from them.
+
+"Madame," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "wad pud you hout so hearly dis
+morning?"
+
+She told him her errand. She asked if he thought she would find
+anything.
+
+"Yez," he said, "it was possible--a few lill' _becassines-de-mer_, ou
+somezin' ligue. But fo' w'y you lill' gal lose doze hapetide?"
+
+"Ah, Miche,"--Madame Delphine might have tried a thousand times again
+without ever succeeding half so well in lifting the curtain upon the
+whole, sweet, tender, old, old-fashioned truth,--"Ah, Miche, she wone
+tell me!"
+
+"Bud, anny'ow, Madame, wad you thing?"
+
+"Miche," she replied, looking up again with a tear standing in either
+eye, and then looking down once more as she began to speak, "I thing--I
+thing she's lonesome."
+
+"You thing?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Ah! Madame Carraze," he said, partly extending his hand, "you see? 'Tis
+impossible to mague you' owze shud so tighd to priv-en dad. Madame, I
+med one mizteg."
+
+"Ah, _non_, Miche!"
+
+"Yez. There har nod one poss'bil'ty fo' me to be dad guardian of you'
+daughteh!"
+
+Madame Delphine started with surprise and alarm.
+
+"There is ondly one wad can be," he continued.
+
+"But oo, Miche?"
+
+"God."
+
+"Ah, Miche Vignevielle----" She looked at him appealingly.
+
+"I don' goin' to dizzerd you, Madame Carraze," he said.
+
+She lifted her eyes. They filled. She shook her head, a tear fell, she
+bit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, sat
+down upon the bench and wept until she shook.
+
+"You dunno wad I mean, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She did not know.
+
+"I mean dad guardian of you' daughteh godd to fine 'er now one 'uzban';
+an' noboddie are hable to do dad egceb de good God 'imsev. But, Madame,
+I tell you wad I do."
+
+She rose up. He continued:
+
+"Go h-open you' owze; I fin' you' daughteh dad' uzban'."
+
+Madame Delphine was a helpless, timid thing; but her eyes showed she was
+about to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand--it
+touched her shoulder--and said, kindly still, and without eagerness.
+
+"One w'ite man, Madame; 'tis prattycabble. I _know_ 'tis prattycabble.
+One w'ite jantleman, Madame. You can truz me. I goin' fedge 'im.
+H-ondly you go h-open you' owze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked down, twining her handkerchief among her fingers.
+
+He repeated his proposition.
+
+"You will come firz by you'se'f?" she asked.
+
+"Iv you wand."
+
+She lifted up once more her eye of faith. That was her answer.
+
+"Come," he said, gently, "I wan' sen' some bird ad you' lill' gal."
+
+And they went away, Madame Delphine's spirit grown so exaltedly bold
+that she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle, I thing Pere Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell you
+someboddie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+FACE TO FACE.
+
+
+Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.
+
+"_Ah! ma piti sans popa_! Ah! my little fatherless one!" Her faded
+bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and
+her dropped basket, with its "few lill' _becassines-de-mer_" dangling
+from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Ma
+piti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"
+
+"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or
+fifth time.
+
+"_Dieu sait, ma c'ere; mo pas conne!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannot
+tell!
+
+The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and
+burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept
+afresh.
+
+"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,
+fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's
+bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"
+
+"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing--I am such a fool."
+
+The girl's eyes filled. The mother looked up into her face and said:
+
+"No, it is nothing, nothing, only that--" turning her head from side to
+side with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Miche Vignevielle is the
+best--_best_ man on the good Lord's earth!"
+
+Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the little
+yellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes.
+Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of telling
+something:
+
+"He sent you those birds!"
+
+The girl drew her face back a little. The little woman turned away,
+trying in vain to hide her tearful smile, and they laughed together,
+Olive mingling a daughter's fond kiss with her laughter.
+
+"There is something else," she said, "and you shall tell me."
+
+"Yes," replied Madame Delphine, "only let me get composed."
+
+But she did not get so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with the
+timid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could to
+brighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified and
+troubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's spirits rose.
+
+The work began, and presently ensued all the thumping, the trundling,
+the lifting and letting down, the raising and swallowing of dust, and
+the smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go to
+characterize a housekeeper's _emeute_; and still, as the work
+progressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little black
+eyes sparkled.
+
+"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever coming
+to see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last sat
+down, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire.
+
+Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. She
+rose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door that
+opened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticed
+bower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There was
+an agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealing
+tone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between her
+palms, she said:
+
+"_Ah! ma mere, qui vini 'ci ce soir?_"--Who is coming here this evening?
+
+"Why, my dear child, I was just saying, we like a clean----"
+
+But the daughter was desperate:
+
+"Oh, tell me, my mother, _who_ is coming?"
+
+"My darling, it is our blessed friend, Miche Vignevielle!"
+
+"To see me?" cried the girl.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, my mother, what have you done?"
+
+"Why, Olive, my child," exclaimed the little mother, bursting into
+tears, "do you forget it is Miche Vignevielle who has promised to
+protect you when I die?"
+
+The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced around
+again, and extending her arms toward her mother, cried:
+
+"How can--he is a white man--I am a poor----"
+
+"Ah! _cherie_" replied Madame Delphine, seizing the outstretched hands,
+"it is there--it is there that he shows himself the best man alive! He
+sees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you a
+suitor!"
+
+Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stood
+proudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but the
+next moment she had uttered a cry, and was sobbing on the floor.
+
+The mother knelt beside her and threw an arm about her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, my sweet daughter, you must not cry! I did not want to tell you at
+all! I did not want to tell you! It isn't fair for you to cry so hard.
+Miche Vignevielle says you shall have the one you wish, or none at all,
+Olive, or none at all."
+
+"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"
+
+"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with him
+to-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."
+
+Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went alone
+to their chamber in the half-story.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window to
+door, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemed
+dismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. How
+she had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! A
+little beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, with
+her eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline was
+undistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening.
+
+She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, an
+approaching step on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stood
+still. She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoe
+grated softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating
+in great thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low,
+and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle!"
+
+He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which we
+have noticed. She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened,
+with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp. But her
+hands paused in their work again,--Olive's step was on the stairs; then
+it came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there was
+the whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowy
+figure in the door. She was dressed for the evening.
+
+"Maman?"
+
+Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at that
+moment it responded with a tiny bead of light.
+
+"I am here, my daughter."
+
+She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence,
+lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoring
+her effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystal
+of the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side;
+the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of the
+room came back into shape.
+
+"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.
+
+"It is Miche Vignevielle, my daughter----"
+
+The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, a
+dark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expanding
+to the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face of
+Capitaine Lemaitre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE MOTHER BIRD.
+
+
+One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called on
+Madame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and had
+hardly left the gate of his cottage, when a person, overtaking him,
+plucked his gown:
+
+"Pere Jerome----"
+
+He turned.
+
+The face that met his was so changed with excitement and distress that
+for an instant he did not recognize it.
+
+"Why, Madame Delphine----"
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! _Mo oule dit
+quic'ose_,--I godd some' to tell you."
+
+The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed to
+think.
+
+"We had better go back to my parlor," said the priest, in their native
+tongue.
+
+They returned.
+
+Madame Delphine's very step was altered,--nervous and inelastic. She
+swung one arm as she walked, and brandished a turkey-tail fan.
+
+"I was glad, yass, to kedge you," she said, as they mounted the front,
+outdoor stair; following her speech with a slight, unmusical laugh, and
+fanning herself with unconscious fury.
+
+"_Fe chaud_," she remarked again, taking the chair he offered and
+continuing to ply the fan.
+
+Pere Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her,
+and said, as he wiped his kindly face:
+
+"Well, Madame Carraze?"
+
+Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan to
+her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.
+
+"Pere Jerome----" She gnawed her lip
+and shook her head.
+
+"Well?"
+
+She burst into tears.
+
+The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did it
+slowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face
+with sudden energy, and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twas
+me! 'Twas me!"
+
+The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly
+turned away her face. Pere Jerome waited a little before replying; then
+he said, very gently:
+
+"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"
+
+The little father felt a wish--one which he often had when weeping women
+were before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to
+press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would
+not let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments more
+to pass, and then asked:
+
+"_N'est-ce-pas_, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, aint it?"
+
+"No, Pere Jerome, no. My daughter--oh, Pere Jerome, I bethroath my lill'
+girl--to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commenced
+savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling
+hand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."
+
+On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:
+
+"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,
+"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yass, 'tis tru'."
+
+He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the
+Creole dialect:
+
+"Is he a good man--without doubt?"
+
+"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous
+smile.
+
+"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being
+deceived by somebody."
+
+There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and
+smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:
+
+"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miche! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"
+
+Pere Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his
+back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.
+
+"He _is_ a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At
+length he halted before the woman.
+
+"Madame Delphine----"
+
+The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was
+lifted to his eyes.
+
+"Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."
+
+"_Qui ci ca?_ What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.
+
+"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."
+
+"Ah, Pere Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and
+putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,
+suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_I
+wizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,
+trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking her
+head, "'tis not Miche Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with
+sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is a
+fool!"
+
+A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--the
+law; but Pere Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very
+response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:
+
+"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I
+help you?"
+
+A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained a
+piteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:
+
+"_Mais, pou'quoi ye fe cette mechanique la?_"--What business had they to
+make that contraption?
+
+His answer was a shrug with his palms extended and a short, disclamatory
+"Ah." He started to resume his walk, but turned to her again and said:
+
+"Why did they make that law? Well, they made it to keep the two races
+separate."
+
+Madame Delphine startled the speaker with a loud, harsh, angry laugh.
+Fire came from her eyes and her lip curled with scorn.
+
+"Then they made a lie, Pere Jerome! Separate! No-o-o! They do not want
+to keep us separated; no, no! But they _do_ want to keep us despised!"
+She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward with physical
+pain. "But, very well! from which race do they want to keep my
+daughter separate? She is seven parts white! The law did not stop
+her from being that; and now, when she wants to be a white man's
+good and honest wife, shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" She rose
+up. "No; I will tell you what that law is made for. It is made
+to--punish--my--child--for--not--choosing--her--father! Pere Jerome--my
+God, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in a
+flood, which she made no attempt to restrain.
+
+"No," she began again--and here she broke into English--"fo' me I don'
+kyare; but, Pere Jerome,--'tis fo' dat I come to tell you,--dey _shall
+not_ punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heaving
+bosom with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"
+
+Pere Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motion
+of the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly with
+the ends of his fingers.
+
+"Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome. Go at 'ome."
+
+"Wad you goin' mague?" she asked.
+
+"Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don' put you'se'f sig. I goin' see
+Ursin. We trah to figs dat law fo' you."
+
+"You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy.
+
+"We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!"
+
+He offered his hand. She seized and kissed it thrice, covering it with
+tears, at the same time lifting up her eyes to his and murmuring:
+
+"De bez man God evva mague!"
+
+At the door she turned to offer a more conventional good-bye; but he was
+following her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, and
+then parted with a simple adieu, she going home and he returning for
+his hat, and starting again upon his interrupted business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings of
+Monsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in.
+
+"Indeed," the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return for
+some days or weeks."
+
+So Pere Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward the
+residence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employes.
+
+"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, as
+far as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Everything is in
+another name." And then he whispered:
+
+"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from some
+of the prisoners taken months ago by the United States brig _Porpoise_.
+But"--a still softer whisper--"have no fear; they will never find him:
+Jean Thompson and Evariste Varrillat have hid him away too well for
+that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+TRIBULATION.
+
+
+The Saturday following was a very beautiful day. In the morning a light
+fall of rain had passed across the town, and all the afternoon you could
+see signs, here and there upon the horizon, of other showers. The ground
+was dry again, while the breeze was cool and sweet, smelling of wet
+foliage and bringing sunshine and shade in frequent and very pleasing
+alternation.
+
+There was a walk in Pere Jerome's little garden, of which we have not
+spoken, off on the right side of the cottage, with his chamber window at
+one end, a few old and twisted, but blossom-laden, crape-myrtles on
+either hand, now and then a rose of some unpretending variety and some
+bunches of rue, and at the other end a shrine, in whose blue niche
+stood a small figure of Mary, with folded hands and uplifted eyes. No
+other window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a
+great comfort to Pere Jerome.
+
+Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest
+was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting
+in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was
+thinking of Ursin. The officers of the Government had not found him, nor
+had Pere Jerome seen him; yet he believed they had, in a certain
+indirect way, devised a simple project by which they could at any time
+"figs dad law," providing only that these Government officials would
+give over their search; for, though he had not seen the fugitive, Madame
+Delphine had seen him, and had been the vehicle of communication between
+them. There was an orange-tree, where a mocking-bird was wont to sing
+and a girl in white to walk, that the detectives wot not of. The law was
+to be "figs" by the departure of the three frequenters of the
+jasmine-scented garden in one ship to France, where the law offered no
+obstacles.
+
+It seemed moderately certain to those in search of Monsieur Vignevielle
+(and it was true) that Jean and Evariste were his harborers; but for all
+that the hunt, even for clues, was vain. The little banking
+establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the
+searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as
+well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the
+same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for his
+personal discovery.
+
+Pere Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, pondering
+these matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk furthest
+from his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, he
+beheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, and
+knew instantly that it was Olive.
+
+She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness.
+
+"I came to confession," she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement in
+her eyes shining through her veil, "but I find I am too late."
+
+"There is no too late or too early for that; I am always ready," said
+the priest. "But how is your mother?"
+
+"Ah!----"
+
+Her voice failed.
+
+"More trouble?"
+
+"Ah, sir, I have _made_ trouble. Oh, Pere Jerome, I am bringing so much
+trouble upon my poor mother!"
+
+Pere Jerome moved slowly toward the house, with his eyes cast down, the
+veiled girl at his side.
+
+"It is not your fault," he presently said. And after another pause: "I
+thought it was all arranged."
+
+He looked up and could see, even through the veil, her crimson blush.
+
+"Oh, no," she replied, in a low, despairing voice, dropping her face.
+
+"What is the difficulty?" asked the priest, stopping in the angle of the
+path, where it turned toward the front of the house.
+
+She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from a
+crape-myrtle.
+
+"Madame Thompson and her husband were at our house this morning. _He_
+had told Monsieur Thompson all about it. They were very kind to me at
+first, but they tried----" She was weeping.
+
+"What did they try to do?" asked the priest.
+
+"They tried to make me believe he is insane."
+
+She succeeded in passing her handkerchief up under her veil.
+
+"And I suppose then your poor mother grew angry, eh?"
+
+"Yes; and they became much more so, and said if we did not write, or
+send a writing, to _him_, within twenty-four hours, breaking the----"
+
+"Engagement," said Pere Jerome.
+
+"They would give him up to the Government. Oh, Pere Jerome, what shall I
+do? It is killing my mother!"
+
+She bowed her head and sobbed.
+
+"Where is your mother now?"
+
+"She has gone to see Monsieur Jean Thompson. She says she has a plan
+that will match them all. I do not know what it is. I begged her not to
+go; but oh, sir, _she is_ crazy,--and--I am no better."
+
+"My poor child," said Pere Jerome, "what you seem to want is not
+absolution, but relief from persecution."
+
+"Oh, father, I have committed mortal sin,--I am guilty of pride and
+anger."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the priest, starting toward his front gate, "we
+will put off your confession. Let it go until to-morrow morning; you
+will find me in my box just before mass; I will hear you then. My child,
+I know that in your heart, now, you begrudge the time it would take; and
+that is right. There are moments when we are not in place even on
+penitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother. Go
+you at once to your house; if she is there, comfort her as best you can,
+and _keep her in, if possible_, until I come. If she is not there, stay;
+leave me to find her; one of you, at least, must be where I can get
+word to you promptly. God comfort and uphold you. I hope you may find
+her at home; tell her, for me, not to fear,"--he lifted the
+gate-latch,--"that she and her daughter are of more value than many
+sparrows; that God's priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her to
+fix her trust in the great Husband of the Church, and she shall yet see
+her child receiving the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; I
+shall, in a few minutes, be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall find
+her, either there or wherever she is. Go; they shall not oppress you.
+Adieu!"
+
+A moment or two later he was in the street himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+BY AN OATH.
+
+
+Pere Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight,
+had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start
+again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked,
+so suddenly as to startle him:
+
+"_Miche, commin ye 'pelle la rie ici?_--how do they call this street
+here?"
+
+It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than
+by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized
+the woman to whom he replied in her own _patois_:
+
+"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"
+
+She almost leaped from the ground.
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome! _mo pas conne_,--I dunno. You know w'ere's dad 'ouse
+of Miche Jean Tomkin? _Mo courri 'ci, mo courri la,--mo pas capale li
+trouve_. I go (run) here--there--I cannot find it," she gesticulated.
+
+"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean
+Thompson, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I '_blige_' to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away,
+one foot planted forward with an air of excited preoccupation; "I god
+some' to tell 'im wad I '_blige_' to tell 'im!"
+
+"Madame Delphine----"
+
+"Oh! Pere Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de
+'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"
+
+Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.
+
+"What are you going to tell him?" asked the priest.
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome,"--in the Creole _patois_ again,--"I am going to put an
+end to all this trouble--only I pray you do not ask me about it now;
+every minute is precious!"
+
+He could not withstand her look of entreaty.
+
+"Come," he said, and they went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the
+Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Each
+had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the
+magnolias,--his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly
+shaded garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall,
+brick-pillared gate, his square of bright, red pavement on the
+turf-covered sidewalk, and his railed platform spanning the
+draining-ditch, with a pair of green benches, one on each edge, facing
+each other crosswise of the gutter. There, any sunset hour, you were
+sure to find the householder sitting beside his cool-robed matron, two
+or three slave nurses in white turbans standing at hand, and an excited
+throng of fair children, nearly all of a size.
+
+Sometimes, at a beckon or call, the parents on one side of the way would
+join those on the other, and the children and nurses of both families
+would be given the liberty of the opposite platform and an ice-cream
+fund! Generally the parents chose the Thompson platform, its outlook
+being more toward the sunset.
+
+Such happened to be the arrangement this afternoon. The two husbands sat
+on one bench and their wives on the other, both pairs very quiet,
+waiting respectfully for the day to die, and exchanging only occasional
+comments on matters of light moment as they passed through the memory.
+During one term of silence Madame Varrillat, a pale, thin-faced, but
+cheerful-looking lady, touched Madame Thompson, a person of two and a
+half times her weight, on her extensive and snowy bare elbow, directing
+her attention obliquely up and across the road.
+
+About a hundred yards distant, in the direction of the river, was a
+long, pleasantly shaded green strip of turf, destined in time for a
+sidewalk. It had a deep ditch on the nearer side, and a fence of rough
+cypress palisades on the farther, and these were overhung, on the one
+hand, by a row of bitter orange-trees inside the inclosure, and, on the
+other, by a line of slanting china-trees along the outer edge of the
+ditch. Down this cool avenue two figures were approaching side by side.
+They had first attracted Madame Varrillat's notice by the bright play of
+sunbeams which, as they walked, fell upon them in soft, golden flashes
+through the chinks between the palisades.
+
+Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from
+her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitering
+general:
+
+"_Pere Jerome et cette milatraise_."
+
+All eyes were bent toward them.
+
+"She walks like a man," said Madame Varrillat, in the language with
+which the conversation had opened.
+
+"No," said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervous
+excitement."
+
+Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:
+
+"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of
+Louisiana,"--as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed.
+Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose applause he prized, and she
+answered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back and
+contriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded. Her laugh was
+musical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up and
+down.
+
+"Pere Jerome is talking to her," said one. The priest was at that moment
+endeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the four
+people who sat watching his approach. It was in the old strain:
+
+"Blame them one part, Madame Delphine, and their fathers, mothers,
+brothers, and fellow-citizens the other ninety-nine."
+
+But to everything she had the one amiable answer which Pere Jerome
+ignored:
+
+"I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. _Tout a
+fait_."
+
+"They are coming here," said Madame Varrillat, half articulately.
+
+"Well, of course," murmured another; and the four rose up, smiling
+courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with
+the priest.
+
+No--Pere Jerome thanked them--he could not sit down.
+
+"This, I believe you know, Jean, is Madame Delphine----"
+
+The quadroone curtsied.
+
+"A friend of mine," he added, smiling kindly upon her, and turning, with
+something imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has an
+important private matter to communicate."
+
+"To me?" asked Jean Thompson.
+
+"To all of you; so I will---- Good-evening." He responded nothing to the
+expressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine. She murmured
+something.
+
+"Ah! yes, certainly." He addressed the company: "She wishes me to speak
+for her veracity; it is unimpeachable. "Well, good-evening." He shook
+hands and departed.
+
+The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standing
+figure.
+
+"Have you something to say to us?" asked Jean Thompson, frowning at her
+law-defying bonnet.
+
+"_Oui_," replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of
+one of the benches, "_mo oule di' tou' c'ose_"--I want to tell
+everything. "_Miche Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune_"--the best
+man in the world; "_mo pas capabe li fe tracas_"--I cannot give him
+trouble. "_Mo pas capabe, non; m'ole di' tous c'ose_." She attempted to
+fan herself, her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested
+on the ground.
+
+"Take a seat," said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, starting
+from his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner of
+the bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two races
+could not both sit down at once--at least not in that public manner.
+
+"Your salts," said the physician to his wife. She handed the vial.
+Madame Delphine stood up again.
+
+"We will all go inside," said Madame Thompson, and they passed through
+the gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cool
+drawing-room.
+
+Madame Thompson herself bade the quadroone be seated.
+
+"Well?" said Jean Thompson, as the rest took chairs.
+
+"_C'est drole_"--it's funny--said Madame Delphine, with a piteous effort
+to smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only to
+look and see. I mean about Olive." She loosed a button in the front of
+her dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herself
+never thought of it. She does not know a word."
+
+The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it to
+Jean Thompson.
+
+"_Ouala so popa_" said Madame Delphine. "That is her father."
+
+It went from one to another, exciting admiration and murmured praise.
+
+"She is the image of him," said Madame Thompson, in an austere
+under-tone, returning it to her husband.
+
+Doctor Varrillat was watching Madame Delphine. She was very pale. She
+had passed a trembling hand into a pocket of her skirt, and now drew
+out another picture, in a case the counterpart of the first. He reached
+out for it, and she handed it to him. He looked at it a moment, when his
+eyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney.
+
+"_Et la_"--Madame Delphine's utterance failed--"_et la, ouala sa
+moman_." (That is her mother.)
+
+The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. They
+were much impressed.
+
+"It is true beyond a doubt!" muttered Madame Thompson.
+
+Madame Varrillat looked at her with astonishment.
+
+"The proof is right there in the faces," said Madame Thompson.
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Madame Delphine, excitedly; "the proof is there! You do
+not want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no better
+proof! That is all anybody could want! My God! you cannot help but see
+it!"
+
+Her manner was wild.
+
+Jean Thompson looked at her sternly.
+
+"Nevertheless you say you are willing to take your solemn oath to this."
+
+"Certainly----"
+
+"You will have to do it."
+
+"Certainly, Miche Thompson, _of course_ I shall; you will make out the
+paper and I will swear before God that it is true! Only"--turning to the
+ladies--"do not tell Olive; she will never believe it. It will break her
+heart! It----"
+
+A servant came and spoke privately to Madame Thompson, who rose quickly
+and went to the hall. Madame Delphine continued, rising unconsciously:
+
+"You see, I have had her with me from a baby. She knows no better. He
+brought her to me only two months old. Her mother had died in the ship,
+coming out here. He did not come straight from home here. His people
+never knew he was married!"
+
+The speaker looked around suddenly with a startled glance. There was a
+noise of excited speaking in the hall.
+
+"It is not true, Madame Thompson!" cried a girl's voice.
+
+Madame Delphine's look became one of wildest distress and alarm, and she
+opened her lips in a vain attempt to utter some request, when Olive
+appeared a moment in the door, and then flew into her arms.
+
+"My mother! my mother! my mother!"
+
+Madame Thompson, with tears in her eyes, tenderly drew them apart and
+let Madame Delphine down into her chair, while Olive threw herself upon
+her knees, continuing to cry:
+
+"Oh, my mother! Say you are my mother!"
+
+Madame Delphine looked an instant into the upturned face, and then
+turned her own away, with a long, low cry of pain, looked again, and
+laying both hands upon the suppliant's head, said:
+
+"_Oh, chere piti a moin, to pa' ma fie!_" (Oh, my darling little one,
+you are not my daughter!) Her eyes closed, and her head sank back; the
+two gentlemen sprang to her assistance, and laid her upon a sofa
+unconscious.
+
+When they brought her to herself, Olive was kneeling at her head
+silently weeping.
+
+"_Maman, chere maman_!" said the girl softly, kissing her lips.
+
+"_Ma courri c'ez moin_" (I will go home), said the mother, drearily.
+
+"You will go home with me," said Madame Varrillat, with great kindness
+of manner--"just across the street here; I will take care of you till
+you feel better. And Olive will stay here with Madame Thompson. You will
+be only the width of the street apart."
+
+But Madame Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she would
+not allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two to
+sleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she would
+accept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of her
+kinspeople--man and wife--to come and make their dwelling with her.
+
+In course of time these two--a poor, timid, helpless, pair--fell heir to
+the premises. Their children had it after them; but, whether in those
+hands or these, the house had its habits and continued in them; and to
+this day the neighbors, as has already been said, rightly explain its
+close-sealed, uninhabited look by the all-sufficient statement that the
+inmates "is quadroons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+KYRIE ELEISON.
+
+
+The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
+burning before the tabernacle in Pere Jerome's little church might have
+hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
+Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
+completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
+in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
+with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
+which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
+confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
+rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
+entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
+of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence
+that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
+would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
+and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.
+
+The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;
+then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some
+projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house
+of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and
+re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The
+search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would
+tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and
+belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an
+unexceptionable eyewitness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)
+Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding
+in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Pere Jerome's vision
+now--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of
+man, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and
+feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome
+eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots
+of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean
+Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his
+tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one
+expression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinking
+female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She
+sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the
+small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted
+face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the
+recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,
+nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired
+priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of
+invitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come to
+confession this afternoon."
+
+By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any
+glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from
+station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly
+going the way of the cross. Yet Pere Jerome tarried.
+
+"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would
+come."
+
+A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a
+subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt
+noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,
+in the voice he had waited to hear:
+
+"_Benissez-moin, mo' Pere, pa'ce que mo peche_." (Bless me, father, for
+I have sinned.)
+
+He gave his blessing.
+
+"_Ainsi soit-il_--Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft
+accents of the Creole _patois_, continued:
+
+"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to
+blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
+Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned
+exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through my
+fault, through my most grievous fault_.' I confessed on Saturday, three
+weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance
+enjoined. Since then----" There she stopped.
+
+There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she
+rose up again, and in a moment she said:
+
+"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the
+half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She
+is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh Olive, my
+own daughter!"
+
+She ceased, and was still. Pere Jerome waited, but no sound came. He
+looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting
+on her arms--motionless.
+
+He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.
+
+"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not
+move.
+
+He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and
+called her by name:
+
+"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there
+was life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed from
+his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to
+heaven and cried:
+
+"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Delphine, by George W. Cable
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