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. PAGEAN 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 toand across Canal street, the central avenue of the city, and to thatcorner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of thearcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrantmerchandise. The crowd--and if it is near the time of the carnival itwill be great--will follow Canal street. 

But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover ofCreole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone tocall the Rue Royale. You will pass a few restaurants, a few auctionrooms, a few furniture warehouses, and will hardly realize that youhave left behind you the activity and clatter of a city of merchantsbefore you find yourself in a region of architectural decrepitude, wherean ancient and foreign-seeming domestic life, in second stories, overhangs the ruins of a former commercial prosperity, and uponeverything has settled down a long Sabbath of decay. The vehicles in thestreet are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores areshrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of brightmould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many greatdoors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many streetwindows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten, and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the olderFranco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick betray a squalor almost oriental. 

Yet beauty lingers here. To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimesyou get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatchedwicket in some _porte-cochère_--red-painted brick pavement, foliage ofdark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and bloomingparterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy battenwindow-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets aglimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and muchsimilar rich antiquity. 

The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the streeta sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are puttingyou off your guard, there will pass you a woman--more likely two orthree--of patrician beauty. 

Now, if you will go far enough down this old street, you will see, asyou approach its intersection with----. Names in that region elude onelike ghosts. 

However, as you begin to find the way a trifle more open, you will notfail to notice on the right-hand side, about midway of the square, asmall, low, brick house of a story and a half, set out upon thesidewalk, as weather-beaten and mute as an aged beggar fallen asleep. Its corrugated roof of dull red tiles, sloping down toward you with aninward curve, is overgrown with weeds, and in the fall of the year isgay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch withyour cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The battenshutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, areshut 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 thehouse has the lock-jaw. There are two doors, and to each a singlechipped and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on aline with the house, is a garden masked from view by a high, closeboard-fence. You may see the tops of its fruit-trees--pomegranate, peach, banana, fig, pear, and particularly one large orange, close bythe 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 haveremoved 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 theywould not tell, but they cannot grasp the idea that you wish toknow--until, possibly, just as you are turning to depart, yourinformant, in a single word and with the most evident non-appreciationof 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 informer years, when the houses of this region generally stood fartherapart, and that garden comprised the whole square. 

Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as shewas commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. Thatshe owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceasedcompanion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as tobe, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject ofgossip. She was never pointed out by the denizens of the quarter as acharacter, nor her house as a "feature. " It would have passed all Creolepowers of guessing to divine what you could find worthy of inquiryconcerning a retired quadroon woman; and not the least puzzled of allwould have been the timid and restive Madame Delphine herself. 

CHAPTER II. 

MADAME DELPHINE. 

During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon casteof New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations--sprung, uponthe one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial militaryservice which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-Americanfrontier life, and, upon the other hand, from comely Ethiopians culledout of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at theship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still intheir head-dresses, --these earlier generations, with scars of battle orprivate rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on themanumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was toresult from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devotedto the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperianexcellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to thepresent, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the _gens decouleur_ whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing oftoilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gate-way oftheir 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 thestrict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor. Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessnessof feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles ofbeauty, --for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them, --theirfascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and prettywit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste andelegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense they wereindeed the sirens of this land, where it seemed "always afternoon"--amomentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, sobeautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of specialchapters by writers of the day more original than correct as socialphilosophers. 

The balls that were got up for them by the male _sang-pur_ were to thatday what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the samenights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates ofgovernment, --municipal, state, federal, --those of the army, of thelearned professions and of the clubs, --in short, the white malearistocracy in everything save the ecclesiastical desk, --were there. Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. Nodistinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, andwore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likenessto innocence. 

Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger, could have told you all aboutit; though hardly, I suppose, without tears. 

But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendorwas set, and her husband--let us call him so for her sake--was longdead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man ofnoble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we cando without. 

Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine'schief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked upin-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said, --a veryworthy person; and they were, may be, nearer correct than they knew. They rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; asmall, rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and agentle thoughtfulness of expression which it would take long todescribe: call it a widow's look. 

In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made ofa gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is gone now, andwas out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron stapleclasping 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 whatwas only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but alsoluminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterwardremembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of hiseyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face theclosest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not withthe oddness that he who reared him had striven to produce. 

He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both ininfancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa ofthe colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make "hisboy" as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as itbecame a pure-blooded French Creole to be who could trace his pedigreeback to the god Mars. 

"Remember, my boy, " was the adjuration received by him as regularly ashis waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever keptthe laws of any government or creed. " And if it was well that he shouldbear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, fromthe nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as ofgentle, _judicial_ benevolence. The domestics of the old man's houseused 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 facialexpression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or oflarge dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come. 

And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of hisgrandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor was heloud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him tosociety; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and theold man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up tothat pitch where he scorned to practice any vice, or any virtue, thatdid not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only werewanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old mandied. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, tosee 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 termintended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands, who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, andmoved in society among its autocrats. But they were full ofpossibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with already apronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivalsthey would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac andBarataria. 

Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had notonly the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turnfor accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with anenterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himselfwith the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in theLafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with theirshining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ringwith the stroke of their hammers; but as a--there was no occasion tomince the word in those days--smuggler. 

Smuggler--patriot--where was the difference? Beyond the ken of acommunity to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long beenmerely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into theall-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come under akinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customswere dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man bemore than Capitaine Lemaitre was--the soul of honor, the pink ofcourtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of theelephant; frank--the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: hispaper was good in Toulouse street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs hewas the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimervirtues. 

Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history. Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted intheir interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to growdisreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made uponthem by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. Thebusiness became unprofitable for a time until the enterprisingLafittes--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 offeredmoney and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, thenhovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that theyhad spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of themarket, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they werereceived as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in thebattle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--heretradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward. 

Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was amongthe missing. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THREE FRIENDS. 

The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans wasa little man fondly known among his people as Père Jerome. He was aCreole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwellingwas a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall, close fence, and reached by a narrow outdoor stair from the green battengate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated behindby a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of thechapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in benediction. The name of the street--ah! there is where light is wanting. Save theCathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of record concerningchurches at that time, though they were springing up here and there. All there is certainty of is that Père Jerome's frame chapel was somelittle new-born "down-town" thing, that may have survived the passage ofyears, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory" "so as by fire. " Hisparlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell distinctly there thevow of poverty. His bedchamber was bare and clean, and the bed in itnarrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room that would tempta laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was small, butstout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of fine wood, and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling pleasantry. Hismother's and sister's doing, Père Jerome would explain; they would notpermit this apartment--or department--to suffer. Therein, as well as inthe parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort, that explainedinterestingly the Père Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile. 

In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes tosit with Père Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached--one, Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now hisbrother-in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngestmanhood, and both, like the little priest himself, the regretfulrememberers of a fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like PèreJerome, they had come, through years, to the thick of life'sconflicts, --the priest's brother-in-law a physician, the other anattorney, and brother-in-law to the lonely wanderer, --yet they loved tohuddle around this small board, and be boys again in heart while men inmind. Neither one nor another was leader. In earlier days they hadalways yielded to him who no longer met with them a certainchieftainship, and they still thought of him and talked of him, and, intheir conjectures, groped after him, as one of whom they continued toexpect 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 ofthe doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson thelawyer, who was half Américain; but running sometimes into English andsometimes 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 criminalityof any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can knowhow much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers orour fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is acommunity of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human sinceAdam--nay, nor Adam himself--ever sinned entirely to himself. And so Inever am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel myconscience pointing at me as one of the accessories. "

"In a word, " said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we arepartly 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 triedthat, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absentfriend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized aspartners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wisercare 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 fromthat name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed hisspeech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Père Jerome, 'ow dat is adreadfool 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 mean' 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 themore to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should havesaid, "--the attorney changed to French, --"'He is no pirate; he hasmerely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of therepublic of Carthagena!'"

"_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and hisbrother-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 Godwill mek it a _mo' terrible_ fo' dat man, oohever he is, w'at put 'atlight 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 cometo 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 andgentility----"*

[*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 ofsecrecy, in French. 

"You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. Youhave heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of theship himself drove them off. "

"An incredible story, " said Thompson. 

"But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. Therewas 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 beautifulthan ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a smallmissal spread open, and, her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commandedhim to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stoodgazing 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 bookand 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 eitherface, and presently broke into a laugh. 

"Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dadcog-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, "ivdad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyarenut'n fo' doze creed; _he fall in love_!"

Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to PèreJerome:

"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 remarkableeffects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find himattributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find forsome a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was butone of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity andincredible eccentricity Père Jerome had a regular correspondent. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE CAP FITS. 

About two months after the conversation just given, and thereforesomewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, Père Jeromedelighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcementthat he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the followingSabbath--not there, but in the cathedral. 

He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there weretwo or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and saidhe would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of theBible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet "the common people heardhim gladly. " When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smileda little and answered his informant, --whom he knew to be one of thewhisperers 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 inwhich there is such a universal harmony, that worship rises from theheart like a spring. 

"Truly, " said Père Jerome to the companion who was to assist him in themass, "this is a Sabbath day which we do not have to make holy, but onlyto _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 heshould say. 

The cathedral of those days was called a very plain old pile, boastingneither beauty nor riches; but to Père Jerome it was very lovely; andbefore its homely altar, not homely to him, in the performance of thosesolemn offices, symbols of heaven's mightiest truths, in the hearing ofthe organ's harmonies, and the yet more eloquent interunion of humanvoices in the choir, in overlooking the worshipping throng which kneltunder the soft, chromatic lights, and in breathing the sacrificial odorsof the chancel, he found a deep and solemn joy; and yet I guess thefinest thought of his soul the while was one that came thrice and again:

"Be not deceived, Père Jerome, because saintliness of feeling is easyhere; you are the same priest who overslept this morning, and overateyesterday, and will, in some way, easily go wrong to-morrow and the dayafter. "

He took it with him when--the _Veni Creator_ sung--he went into thepulpit. Of the sermon he preached, tradition has preserved for us only afew brief sayings, but they are strong and sweet. 

"My friends, " he said, --this was near the beginning, --"the angry wordsof God's book are very merciful--they are meant to drive us home; butthe tender words, my friends, they are sometimes terrible! Notice these, the tenderest words of the tenderest prayer that ever came from the lipsof 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 thecharge of them who stoned him? To whose charge then? Go ask the holySaint Paul. Three years afterward, praying in the temple at Jerusalem, he answered that question: 'I stood by and consented. ' He answered forhimself only; but the Day must come when all that wicked council thatsent 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 thepardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth that we all have ashare in one another's sins. "

Thus Père Jerome touched his key-note. All that time has spared usbeside may be given in a few sentences. 

"Ah!" he cried once, "if it were merely my own sins that I had to answerfor, I might hold up my head before the rest of mankind; but no, no, myfriends--we cannot look each other in the face, for each has helped theother to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of commondisgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despairought 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 theantediluvians was closed off and the balance brought down in the year ofthe deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on, andthe blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop ittill the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come atlast, when thou wilt destroy the world, and stop the interest on myaccount!"

It was about at this point that Père Jerome noticed, more particularlythan he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, asmall, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, whogave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress, seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck werescrupulously 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, claspeach other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at thesewords:

"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleansto whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the _nots_rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling topurgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go whostrew it with thorns and briers!"

The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. Heglanced that way again as he said:

"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaventhis day had they never had a father and mother, but had got theirreligious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisianathis holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"

The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchangedthe same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were fullof tears. 

"I once knew a man, " continued the little priest, glancing to a sideaisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other, "who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single onlyprinciple of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not evengain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance tonature, 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 apirate in the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, lay not that sin to his chargealone! But a strange thing followed. Being in command of men of a sortthat to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he nowfound himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemncompanionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm, theheavens by day, the heavens by night. My friends, that was the firsttime 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--hadrendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, andclosed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result isplain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holyspectacle of the starry deep above and the watery deep below, was sureto find himself, sooner or later, mastered by the conviction that thegreat Author of this majestic creation keeps account of it; and onenight 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 answersthe first question with 'God, ' nothing but questions follow; and so, oneday, this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one little book whichanswered those questions. God help him to understand it! and God helpyou, 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 byand consented. '"

Père Jerome had not intended these for his closing words; but justthere, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, aman 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, wasended. While the _Credo_ was being chanted he was still there; but when, a moment after its close, the eye of Père Jerome returned in thatdirection, his place was empty. 

As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, wasturning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, hejust had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing himto 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 forthat sermon. "

"Then, so do I, " said the little man. They were the same two that he hadnoticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was abeautiful figure, but the slight effort of Père Jerome's kind eyes tosee through the veil was vain. He would presently have passed on, butthe 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 andtimidity. 

"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the goodGod, " 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 haveadded that he loved to do it, quite as much. 

It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to getcourage to ask it. 

"You have a little boy?" asked the priest. 

"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Thenshe began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousnessasked:

"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 beautifulstory. " 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? Anddo you go to my church, Madame----?"

"No, Miché; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"--shechoked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer thismark 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 hisparlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative ofhearty greeting rather than surprise. 

"Madame Delphine!"

Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for thoughanother Sunday had not yet come around, the slim, smallish figuresitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire, which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was DelphineCarraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over andabove an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he hadrecognized her voice. 

She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then looked to the floor, andbegan a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiledweakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note, frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes, while shadows ofanxiety 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, withdowncast 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 itdespondingly--"a cruel thing. " The tears rolled from her eyes as sheturned away her face. 

Père Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with theevident intention of speaking at length. 

"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, felllower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and shemurmured--"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 inlove. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardiansmiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing toanswer for, and yet I think God may have said: 'She is a quadroone; allthe rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy toher--almost compulsory, --charge it to account of whom it may concern. "

"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it mightfall upon--" Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips andnervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good--as good asthe law would let him be--better, indeed, for he left me property, whichreally the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter verymuch. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error andasking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to them whenhe died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteenyears. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. Andthen--at last--" Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligentlywith her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of herlap. 

"At last your mother-heart conquered, " said Père Jerome. 

She nodded. 

"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was shedid not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she askedme to let her come--. " The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "Iknow 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 iswhite 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 bowedout, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering. 

"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at MadameDelphine 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 haddropped upon a strange planet. " He suddenly looked up with a brightnesswhich almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. Hishappy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "Theycannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which theyhave 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 onceto 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 issure: 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; "andI 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 roseand gave her hand. As she withdrew it she smiled. "I had such a strangedream, " she said, backing toward the door. 

"Yes?"

"Yes. I got my troubles all mixed up with your sermon. I dreamed I madethat pirate the guardian of my daughter. "

Père Jerome smiled also, and shrugged. 

"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in thiscountry, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I thinkthat one is, without doubt, the best. "

"Without doubt, " echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawingbackward. Père Jerome stepped forward and opened the door. 

The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon thethreshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, liftingfrom his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fairwhere the hat had covered it and dark below, gently stroking back hisvery soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, whilePère Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a largerhand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine'seyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitorwere of white duck. 

"Well, Père Jerome, " she said, in a hurried under-tone, "I am just goingto say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"

"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, MadameCarraze. "

And as she departed, the priest turned to the new-comer and extendedboth hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had beenaddressing the quadroone:

"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"

They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playingwith the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, oftenmentioning Evariste and often Jean. 

Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to PèreJerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. Shepassed 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 whiteduck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonadesuit. 

"Yes, " the voice of Père Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in thedoor--"Ah! Madame--"

"I lef' my para_sol_, " said Madame Delphine, in English. 

There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere downunder her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventionalprohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, andcarried a parasol. 

Père Jerome turned and brought it. 

He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor haddisappeared. 

"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 keptsecret; he repressed the impulse, but his heart had to say something. Hethrew forward one hand and looking pleasantly at Madame Delphine, withhis lips dropped apart, clenched his extended hand and thrusting ittoward 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 hadalmost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequenceof 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 PèreJerome--she found it necessary to get one of these changed into smallmoney. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the otherfor a bank which was not in that street at all, when she noticed a smallsign hanging above a door, bearing the name "Vignevielle. " She lookedin. Père Jerome had told her (when she had gone to him to ask where sheshould apply for change) that if she could only wait a few days, therewould be a new concern opened in Toulouse street, --it really seemed asif Vignevielle was the name, if she could judge; it looked to be, and itwas, a private banker's, --"U. L. Vignevielle's, " according to a largerinscription which met her eyes as she ventured in. Behind the counter, exchanging some last words with a busy-mannered man outside, who, inwithdrawing, seemed bent on running over Madame Delphine, stood the manin blue cottonade, whom she had met in Père Jerome's door-way. Now, forthe first time, she saw his face, its strong, grave, human kindnessshining softly on each and every bronzed feature. The recognition wasmutual. He took pains to speak first, saying, in a re-assuring tone, andin 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 whichshe began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had anuncommonly 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 inEnglish, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, andpresently, as she turned to go, he said:

"Madame Carraze!"

She started a little, but bethought herself instantly that he had heardher name in Père Jerome's parlor. The good father might even have said afew words about her after her first departure; he had such anoverflowing 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 ofnote. You see--" He drew from his cash-drawer a note resembling the onehe had just changed for her, and proceeded to point out certain tests ofgenuineness. 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 employéand 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 heturned 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 frightenedlittle woman start, but extending his palm with a show of frankness, andassuming 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 morekindly authoritative import, and as he turned away again with a mannersuggestive 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 thetruth that day in your parlor. _Mo conné li à c't heure_. I know himnow; 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 hereyes than Père Jerome had ever before seen there. 

"Madame Delphine, " he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make _him_ yourdaughter'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 afteranother, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weekselapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But atlength, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind MonsieurVignevielle's banking-room, --he sitting beside a table, and she, moretimid and demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door, --shesaid, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seemunimportant, and yet with some tremor of voice:

"Miché Vignevielle, I bin maguing my will. " (Having commenced theiracquaintance 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 asshe said:

"Miché Vignevielle----" Here she choked, and began her peculiar motionof laying folds in the skirt of her dress, with trembling fingers. Shelifted her eyes, and as they met the look of deep and placid kindnessthat 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 ownboldness. 

"She's a good lill' chile, eh?"

"Miché, she's a lill' hangel!" exclaimed Madame Delphine, with a look ofdistress. 

"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 seemedto 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 differendwad she loog lag; I don' wan' see 'er. "

Madame Delphine's parting smile--she went very shortly--was gratitudebeyond speech. 

Monsieur Vignevielle returned to the seat he had left, and resumed anewspaper, --the _Louisiana Gazette_ in all probability, --which he hadlaid down upon Madame Delphine's entrance. His eyes fell upon aparagraph 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 acrossthe table, and laying one palm upon a package of papers which lay in theother, "it is completed. You could retire from your business any dayinside of six hours without loss to anybody. " (Both here and elsewhere, let it be understood that where good English is given the words werespoken in good French. )

Monsieur Vignevielle raised his eyes and extended the newspaper to theattorney, who received it and read the paragraph. Its substance was thata certain vessel of the navy had returned from a cruise in the Gulf ofMexico and Straits of Florida, where she had done valuable serviceagainst the pirates--having, for instance, destroyed in one fortnight inJanuary last twelve pirate vessels afloat, two on the stocks, and threeestablishments ashore. 

"United States brig _Porpoise_, " repeated Jean Thompson. "Do you knowher?"

"We are acquainted, " said Monsieur Vignevielle. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SHE. 

A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neatgarb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, asilent 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 CanalMarigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti--these wereall; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the returnof Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and earlylife. 

But we hardly give the event its right name. It was Capitaine Lemaitrewho had disappeared; it was Monsieur Vignevielle who had come back. Thepleasures, the haunts, the companions, that had once held out theircharms to the impetuous youth, offered no enticements to MadameDelphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride hisgrandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above lowindulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knavesthrough all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done itloftily; 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 hisexecutor. "

"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 gocrazy. "

"You have not proved that, " replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy. "You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaperparagraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; Iclaim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship. ' He iscrazy. "

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 roverwas a trifle snarled in his top-hamper. 

This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricitiesof manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactionsin business. 

"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not runninga charitable institution!"

"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversationceased. 

"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once, " asked theattorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit ofit?"

"And make the end worse than the beginning, " said the banker, with agentle smile, turning away to a desk of books. 

"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson. 

Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went heseemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to thosewho were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; butthose who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door orgate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, youmight see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane. It was verysingular. 

He walked much alone after dark. The _guichinangoes_ (garroters, wemight say), at those times the city's particular terror by night, nevercrossed his path. He was one of those men for whom danger appears tostand aside. 

One beautiful summer night, when all nature seemed hushed in ecstasy, the last blush gone that told of the sun's parting, MonsieurVignevielle, in the course of one of those contemplative, uncompanionedwalks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more openportion of the Rue Royale, with a step which was soft without intention, occasionally touching the end of his stout cane gently to the ground andlooking upward among his old acquaintances, the stars. 

It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the sternerenergies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and thefancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters andescape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush andsweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, bythe genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was stillagain, as if the breezes lifted their expectant pinions and lowered themonce more, awaiting the rising of the moon in a silence which fell uponthe fields, the roads, the gardens, the walls, and the suburban andhalf-suburban streets, like a pause in worship. And anon she rose. 

Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part ofthe 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, andalmost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, amocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. Itmay have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted thepasser's attention, but he paused and looked up. 

And then he remarked something more, --that the air where he had stoppedwas filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. Helooked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate justthere. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about itin a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. Aniron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into thegate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithingbusiness--an eye which had later received high training as an eye forfastenings--fell upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the woodhad shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though withoutfalling out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large handupon the cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate wasdrawn partly open. 

At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door orgate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image ofwhose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it hadmet him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way ofdestruction. 

The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within theopening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, abroad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-treesand tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell, the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weedsstood 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 hadtempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turnedfrom him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to theright, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likelya door of the house might open upon it. While he still looked, therefell upon his ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on thebroken shells, --one only, and then all was for a moment still again. Hadhe mistaken? No. The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a paleglimpse 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 themedium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, richwaves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in twoheavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees, a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and hertemples, --her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down toguide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of thegrass, --straight down the path she came!

Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in thedeep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel andvanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms, the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upontiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _Can it be?_ Is thishis quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to M. Vignevielle theunsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she isnow, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon willshine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to dothat. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neckand throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mocking-bird cannotwithhold; 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 ofthe maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion, while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation ofwomanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair werefair 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 thatseemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for thelarge, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingleddreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color ofshell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which tookits place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory. 

This side door-way which led from Madame Delphine's house into hergarden was overarched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice, and partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaneda rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when thetwilights were balmy or the moon was bright. 

"_Chérie_, " said Madame Delphine on one of these evenings, "why do youdream so much?"

She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughterhad easily learned. 

The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped herglance to the hands in her own lap, which were listlessly handling theend of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Herdress was white again; this was but one night since that in whichMonsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He hadnot been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leavingit as he had found it. 

Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in themoonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chastedrapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion wasagain laying aside to re-assume the mediæval bondage of the stay-lace;for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphineand her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue, of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside herhands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentleadmiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden. 

Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, andon 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, adaughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, andOlive 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 dayit was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having everafforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become ofsecondary 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 thatmissal?"

"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 inand through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughterspoke 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 summoningof 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 youmay never see in this world!"

The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her armsabout 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 desperateresolution. 

"It would be useless, anyhow, " said the mother, laying her arm aroundher 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 theshrubbery startled them. 

"_Qui ci ça?_" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as the twostood up, holding to each other. 

No answer. 

"It was only the dropping of a twig, " she whispered, after a longholding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred iteverywhere. 

It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course oftime, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, andfearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall. 

CHAPTER X. 

BIRDS. 

Monsieur Vignevielle looked in at no more doors or windows; but if thedisappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came tonotice which were especially bad, --for instance, wakefulness. Atwell-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared notpatrol singly, would meet him on his slow, unmolested, sky-gazing walk. 

"Seems to enjoy it, " said Jean Thompson; "the worst sort of evidence. Ifhe showed distress of mind, it would not be so bad; but hiscalmness, --ugly feature. "

The attorney had held his ground so long that he began really to believeit 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 vividastonishment to those who held preconceived notions of a banker'scalling. As a banker, at least, he was certainly out of balance; whileas a promenader, it seemed to those who watched him that his ruling ideahad 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 pairwere kneeling side by side on the tiled floor of the church, "yonder isMiché Vignevielle! If you will only look at once--he is just passing alittle in----. Ah, much too slow again; he stepped out by the sidedoor. "

The mother thought it a strange providence that Monsieur Vignevielleshould 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 andfastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence youcould faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the songs of theGascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of thedistant market-house. She was going to see if she could find some birdsfor Olive, --the child's appetite was so poor; and, as she was out, shewould 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 gonea dozen steps before she repented her temerity. There was some onebehind her. 

There should not be anything terrible in a footstep merely because it ismasculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider that. A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had found ashoe-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. Shequickened her pace, but did not leave the sound behind. She hurriedforward 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 mychild!" After a fearful time she reached a place of safety, thecathedral. There, panting, she knelt long enough to know the pursuitwas, at least, suspended, and then arose, hoping and praying all thesaints that she might find the way clear for her return in all haste toOlive. 

She approached a different door from that by which she had entered, hereyes in all directions and her heart in her throat. 

"Madame Carraze. "

She started wildly and almost screamed, though the voice was soft andmild. Monsieur Vignevielle came slowly forward from the shade of thewall. 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 patienteyes, and drew sweet re-assurance from them. 

"Madame, " said Monsieur Vignevielle, "wad pud you hout so hearly dismorning?"

She told him her errand. She asked if he thought she would findanything. 

"Yez, " he said, "it was possible--a few lill' _bécassines-de-mer_, ousomezin' ligue. But fo' w'y you lill' gal lose doze hapetide?"

"Ah, Miché, "--Madame Delphine might have tried a thousand times againwithout ever succeeding half so well in lifting the curtain upon thewhole, sweet, tender, old, old-fashioned truth, --"Ah, Miché, she wonetell me!"

"Bud, anny'ow, Madame, wad you thing?"

"Miché, " she replied, looking up again with a tear standing in eithereye, and then looking down once more as she began to speak, "I thing--Ithing she's lonesome. "

"You thing?"

She nodded. 

"Ah! Madame Carraze, " he said, partly extending his hand, "you see? 'Tisimpossible to mague you' owze shud so tighd to priv-en dad. Madame, Imed 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, shebit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, satdown 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 wasabout to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand--ittouched 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 boldthat she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:

"Miché Vignevielle, I thing Père Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell yousomeboddie. "

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 fadedbonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, andher dropped basket, with its "few lill' _bécassines-de-mer_" danglingfrom the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Mapiti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"

"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth orfifth time. 

"_Dieu sait, ma c'ère; mo pas conné!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannottell!

The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, andburst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and weptafresh. 

"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn, fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother'sbonnet-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 toside with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Miché Vignevielle is thebest--_best_ man on the good Lord's earth!"

Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the littleyellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes. Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of tellingsomething:

"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 thetimid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could tobrighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified andtroubled, 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, andthe smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go tocharacterize a housekeeper's _émeute_; and still, as the workprogressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little blackeyes sparkled. 

"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever comingto see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last satdown, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire. 

Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. Sherose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door thatopened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticedbower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There wasan agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealingtone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between herpalms, 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 intotears, "do you forget it is Miché Vignevielle who has promised toprotect you when I die?"

The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced aroundagain, 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! Hesees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you asuitor!"

Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stoodproudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but thenext 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 atall! 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 himto-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter. "

Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went aloneto their chamber in the half-story. 

 * * * * *

Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window todoor, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemeddismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. Howshe had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! Alittle beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, withher eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline wasundistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening. 

She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, anapproaching step on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stoodstill. She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoegrated softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beatingin 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 wehave 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 herhands paused in their work again, --Olive's step was on the stairs; thenit came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there wasthe whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowyfigure in the door. She was dressed for the evening. 

"Maman?"

Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at thatmoment 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, ignoringher effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystalof 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 theroom 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, adark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expandingto the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face ofCapitaine Lemaitre. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE MOTHER BIRD. 

One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called onMadame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and hadhardly 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 thatfor an instant he did not recognize it. 

"Why, Madame Delphine----"

"Oh, Père Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! _Mo oulé ditquiç'ose_, --I godd some' to tell you. "

The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed tothink. 

"We had better go back to my parlor, " said the priest, in their nativetongue. 

They returned. 

Madame Delphine's very step was altered, --nervous and inelastic. Sheswung 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, andfanning herself with unconscious fury. 

"_Fé chaud_, " she remarked again, taking the chair he offered andcontinuing 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 toher knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers. 

"Père Jerome----" She gnawed her lipand shook her head. 

"Well?"

She burst into tears. 

The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did itslowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her facewith sudden energy, and exclaimed:

"Oh, Père Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twasme! 'Twas me!"

The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumblyturned away her face. Père Jerome waited a little before replying; thenhe 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 womenwere before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough topress the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God wouldnot let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments moreto 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 commencedsavagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one tremblinghand, 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 theCreole dialect:

"Is he a good man--without doubt?"

"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturoussmile. 

"My poor, dear friend, " said the priest, "I am afraid you are beingdeceived by somebody. "

There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone andsmile 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 hisback and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor. 

"He _is_ a good man, " he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. Atlength he halted before the woman. 

"Madame Delphine----"

The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps waslifted 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, andputting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm, suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_Iwizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank, trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no, " she continued, shaking herhead, "'tis not Miché Vignevielle w'at's crezzie. " Her eyes lighted withsudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is afool!"

A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--thelaw; but Père Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this veryresponse. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:

"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can Ihelp you?"

A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained apiteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:

"_Mais, pou'quoi yé fé cette méchanique là?_"--What business had they tomake 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 racesseparate. "

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 wantto keep us separated; no, no! But they _do_ want to keep us despised!"She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward with physicalpain. "But, very well! from which race do they want to keep mydaughter separate? She is seven parts white! The law did not stopher from being that; and now, when she wants to be a white man'sgood and honest wife, shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" She roseup. "No; I will tell you what that law is made for. It is madeto--punish--my--child--for--not--choosing--her--father! Père Jerome--myGod, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in aflood, 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 _shallnot_ punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heavingbosom with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"

Père Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motionof the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly withthe 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' seeUrsin. 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 withtears, 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 wasfollowing her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, andthen parted with a simple adieu, she going home and he returning forhis hat, and starting again upon his interrupted business. 

 * * * * *

Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings ofMonsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in. 

"Indeed, " the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return forsome days or weeks. "

So Père Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward theresidence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employés. 

"Yes, " said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, asfar as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Everything is inanother name. " And then he whispered:

"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from someof 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 forthat. "

CHAPTER XIII. 

TRIBULATION. 

The Saturday following was a very beautiful day. In the morning a lightfall of rain had passed across the town, and all the afternoon you couldsee signs, here and there upon the horizon, of other showers. The groundwas dry again, while the breeze was cool and sweet, smelling of wetfoliage and bringing sunshine and shade in frequent and very pleasingalternation. 

There was a walk in Père Jerome's little garden, of which we have notspoken, off on the right side of the cottage, with his chamber window atone end, a few old and twisted, but blossom-laden, crape-myrtles oneither hand, now and then a rose of some unpretending variety and somebunches of rue, and at the other end a shrine, in whose blue nichestood a small figure of Mary, with folded hands and uplifted eyes. Noother window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often agreat comfort to Père Jerome. 

Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priestwas walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sittingin the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He wasthinking of Ursin. The officers of the Government had not found him, norhad Père Jerome seen him; yet he believed they had, in a certainindirect way, devised a simple project by which they could at any time"figs dad law, " providing only that these Government officials wouldgive over their search; for, though he had not seen the fugitive, MadameDelphine had seen him, and had been the vehicle of communication betweenthem. There was an orange-tree, where a mocking-bird was wont to singand a girl in white to walk, that the detectives wot not of. The law wasto be "figs" by the departure of the three frequenters of thejasmine-scented garden in one ship to France, where the law offered noobstacles. 

It seemed moderately certain to those in search of Monsieur Vignevielle(and it was true) that Jean and Evariste were his harborers; but for allthat the hunt, even for clues, was vain. The little bankingestablishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told thesearchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor aswell, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if thesame relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for hispersonal discovery. 

Père Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, ponderingthese matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk furthestfrom his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, hebeheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, andknew instantly that it was Olive. 

She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness. 

"I came to confession, " she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement inher 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, " saidthe 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 muchtrouble upon my poor mother!"

Père Jerome moved slowly toward the house, with his eyes cast down, theveiled girl at his side. 

"It is not your fault, " he presently said. And after another pause: "Ithought 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 thepath, where it turned toward the front of the house. 

She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from acrape-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 atfirst, 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, orsend 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 Ido? 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 planthat will match them all. I do not know what it is. I begged her not togo; but oh, sir, _she is_ crazy, --and--I am no better. "

"My poor child, " said Père Jerome, "what you seem to want is notabsolution, but relief from persecution. "

"Oh, father, I have committed mortal sin, --I am guilty of pride andanger. "

"Nevertheless, " said the priest, starting toward his front gate, "wewill put off your confession. Let it go until to-morrow morning; youwill 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; andthat is right. There are moments when we are not in place even onpenitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother. Goyou 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 getword to you promptly. God comfort and uphold you. I hope you may findher at home; tell her, for me, not to fear, "--he lifted thegate-latch, --"that she and her daughter are of more value than manysparrows; that God's priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her tofix her trust in the great Husband of the Church, and she shall yet seeher child receiving the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; Ishall, in a few minutes, be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall findher, 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 startagain, 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 streethere?"

It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather thanby the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognizedthe 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 'ouseof Michè Jean Tomkin? _Mo courri 'ci, mo courri là, --mo pas capale litrouvé_. 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 JeanThompson, 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 godsome' 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 anend 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 theBayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Eachhad his large, white-columned, four-sided house among themagnolias, --his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darklyshaded garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall, brick-pillared gate, his square of bright, red pavement on theturf-covered sidewalk, and his railed platform spanning thedraining-ditch, with a pair of green benches, one on each edge, facingeach other crosswise of the gutter. There, any sunset hour, you weresure to find the householder sitting beside his cool-robed matron, twoor three slave nurses in white turbans standing at hand, and an excitedthrong of fair children, nearly all of a size. 

Sometimes, at a beckon or call, the parents on one side of the way wouldjoin those on the other, and the children and nurses of both familieswould be given the liberty of the opposite platform and an ice-creamfund! Generally the parents chose the Thompson platform, its outlookbeing more toward the sunset. 

Such happened to be the arrangement this afternoon. The two husbands saton one bench and their wives on the other, both pairs very quiet, waiting respectfully for the day to die, and exchanging only occasionalcomments on matters of light moment as they passed through the memory. During one term of silence Madame Varrillat, a pale, thin-faced, butcheerful-looking lady, touched Madame Thompson, a person of two and ahalf times her weight, on her extensive and snowy bare elbow, directingher attention obliquely up and across the road. 

About a hundred yards distant, in the direction of the river, was along, pleasantly shaded green strip of turf, destined in time for asidewalk. It had a deep ditch on the nearer side, and a fence of roughcypress palisades on the farther, and these were overhung, on the onehand, by a row of bitter orange-trees inside the inclosure, and, on theother, by a line of slanting china-trees along the outer edge of theditch. Down this cool avenue two figures were approaching side by side. They had first attracted Madame Varrillat's notice by the bright play ofsunbeams which, as they walked, fell upon them in soft, golden flashesthrough the chinks between the palisades. 

Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction fromher very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoiteringgeneral:

"_Père Jerome et cette milatraise_. "

All eyes were bent toward them. 

"She walks like a man, " said Madame Varrillat, in the language withwhich the conversation had opened. 

"No, " said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervousexcitement. "

Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:

"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State ofLouisiana, "--as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed. Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose applause he prized, and sheanswered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back andcontriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded. Her laugh wasmusical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up anddown. 

"Père Jerome is talking to her, " said one. The priest was at that momentendeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the fourpeople 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 Jeromeignored:

"I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. _Tout àfait_. "

"They are coming here, " said Madame Varrillat, half articulately. 

"Well, of course, " murmured another; and the four rose up, smilingcourteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands withthe 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, withsomething imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has animportant private matter to communicate. "

"To me?" asked Jean Thompson. 

"To all of you; so I will---- Good-evening. " He responded nothing to theexpressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine. She murmuredsomething. 

"Ah! yes, certainly. " He addressed the company: "She wishes me to speakfor her veracity; it is unimpeachable. "Well, good-evening. " He shookhands and departed. 

The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standingfigure. 

"Have you something to say to us?" asked Jean Thompson, frowning at herlaw-defying bonnet. 

"_Oui_, " replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold ofone of the benches, "_mo oulé di' tou' ç'ose_"--I want to telleverything. "_Miché Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune_"--the bestman in the world; "_mo pas capabe li fé tracas_"--I cannot give himtrouble. "_Mo pas capabe, non; m'olé di' tous ç'ose_. " She attempted tofan herself, her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes restedon the ground. 

"Take a seat, " said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, startingfrom his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner ofthe bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two racescould 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 throughthe gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cooldrawing-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 effortto smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only tolook and see. I mean about Olive. " She loosed a button in the front ofher dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herselfnever thought of it. She does not know a word. "

The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it toJean 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 austereunder-tone, returning it to her husband. 

Doctor Varrillat was watching Madame Delphine. She was very pale. Shehad passed a trembling hand into a pocket of her skirt, and now drewout another picture, in a case the counterpart of the first. He reachedout for it, and she handed it to him. He looked at it a moment, when hiseyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney. 

"_Et là_"--Madame Delphine's utterance failed--"_et là, ouala samoman_. " (That is her mother. )

The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. Theywere 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 donot want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no betterproof! That is all anybody could want! My God! you cannot help but seeit!"

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 thepaper and I will swear before God that it is true! Only"--turning to theladies--"do not tell Olive; she will never believe it. It will break herheart! It----"

A servant came and spoke privately to Madame Thompson, who rose quicklyand went to the hall. Madame Delphine continued, rising unconsciously:

"You see, I have had her with me from a baby. She knows no better. Hebrought 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 peoplenever knew he was married!"

The speaker looked around suddenly with a startled glance. There was anoise 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 sheopened her lips in a vain attempt to utter some request, when Oliveappeared 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 andlet Madame Delphine down into her chair, while Olive threw herself uponher knees, continuing to cry:

"Oh, my mother! Say you are my mother!"

Madame Delphine looked an instant into the upturned face, and thenturned her own away, with a long, low cry of pain, looked again, andlaying 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; thetwo gentlemen sprang to her assistance, and laid her upon a sofaunconscious. 

When they brought her to herself, Olive was kneeling at her headsilently 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 kindnessof manner--"just across the street here; I will take care of you tillyou feel better. And Olive will stay here with Madame Thompson. You willbe only the width of the street apart. "

But Madame Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she wouldnot allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two tosleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she wouldaccept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of herkinspeople--man and wife--to come and make their dwelling with her. 

In course of time these two--a poor, timid, helpless, pair--fell heir tothe premises. Their children had it after them; but, whether in thosehands or these, the house had its habits and continued in them; and tothis day the neighbors, as has already been said, rightly explain itsclose-sealed, uninhabited look by the all-sufficient statement that theinmates "is quadroons. "

CHAPTER XV. 

KYRIE ELEISON. 

The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lampburning before the tabernacle in Père Jerome's little church might havehung 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 morecompletely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspendedin the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery, with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small doorwhich stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of theconfessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow androlled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some oneentering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the bandof light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presencethat the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years, would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessingand 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 someprojected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-houseof "Vignevielle, " in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, andre-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. Thesearch was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they wouldtell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge andbelief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of anunexceptionable eyewitness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a weddingin the little church. Its scenes lingered before Père Jerome's visionnow--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences ofman, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part andfeature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesomeeyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knotsof friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; JeanThompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through histightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing oneexpression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinkingfemale figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. Shesat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in thesmall, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wastedface, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither therecollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind, nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tiredpriest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words ofinvitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come toconfession this afternoon. "

By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or anyglancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress fromstation to station of some one over on the right who was noiselesslygoing the way of the cross. Yet Père Jerome tarried. 

"She will surely come, " he said to himself; "she promised she wouldcome. "

A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught asubtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent kneltnoiselessly 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, forI have sinned. )

He gave his blessing. 

"_Ainsi soit-il_--Amen, " murmured the penitent, and then, in the softaccents of the Creole _patois_, continued:

"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, toblessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holyApostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinnedexceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through myfault, through my most grievous fault_. ' I confessed on Saturday, threeweeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penanceenjoined. Since then----" There she stopped. 

There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if sherose up again, and in a moment she said:

"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is thehalf-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. Sheis the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh Olive, myown daughter!"

She ceased, and was still. Père Jerome waited, but no sound came. Helooked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead restingon 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 notmove. 

He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, andcalled her by name:

"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant therewas life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed fromhis own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up toheaven and cried:

"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"