and slippers. She held the hand of her sister who lay there, and

smoothed down the woman's soft brown hair. She said not a word,
and the silence was broken only by Mam'selle Pauline's continued

sobs. Once Ma'ame Pelagie arose to mix a drink of orange-flower
water, which she gave to her sister, as she would have offered it

to a nervous, fretful child. Almost an hour passed before Ma'ame
Pelagie spoke again. Then she said:--

"Pauline, you must cease that sobbing, now, and sleep. You will
make yourself ill. La Petite will not go away. Do you hear me?

Do you understand? She will stay, I promise you."
Mam'selle Pauline could not clearly comprehend, but she had

great faith in the word of her sister, and soothed by the promise
and the touch of Ma'ame Pelagie's strong, gentle hand, she fell asleep.

III
Ma'ame Pelagie, when she saw that her sister slept, arose

noiselessly and stepped outside upon the low-roofed narrow gallery.
She did not linger there, but with a step that was hurried and agitated,

she crossed the distance that divided her cabin from the ruin.
The night was not a dark one, for the sky was clear and the

moon resplendent. But light or dark would have made no difference
to Ma'ame Pelagie. It was not the first time she had stolen away

to the ruin at night-time, when the whole plantation slept; but she
never before had been there with a heart so nearly broken. She was

going there for the last time to dream her dreams; to see the
visions that hitherto had crowded her days and nights, and to bid

them farewell.
There was the first of them, awaiting her upon the very

portal; a robust old white-haired man, chiding her for returning
home so late. There are guests to be entertained. Does she not

know it? Guests from the city and from the near plantations. Yes,
she knows it is late. She had been abroad with Felix, and they did

not notice how the time was speeding. Felix is there; he will
explain it all. He is there beside her, but she does not want to

hear what he will tell her father.
Ma'ame Pelagie had sunk upon the bench where she and her

sister so often came to sit. Turning, she gazed in through the
gaping chasm of the window at her side. The interior of the ruin

is ablaze. Not with the moonlight, for that is faint beside the
other one--the sparkle from the crystal candelabra, which negroes,

moving noiselessly and respectfully about, are lighting, one after
the other. How the gleam of them reflects and glances from the

polished marble pillars!
The room holds a number of guests. There is old Monsieur

Lucien Santien, leaning against one of the pillars, and laughing at
something which Monsieur Lafirme is telling him, till his fat

shoulders shake. His son Jules is with him--Jules, who wants to
marry her. She laughs. She wonders if Felix has told her father

yet. There is young Jerome Lafirme playing at checkers upon the
sofa with Leandre. Little Pauline stands annoying them and

disturbing the game. Leandre reproves her. She begins to cry, and
old black Clementine, her nurse, who is not far off, limps across

the room to pick her up and carry her away. How sensitive the
little one is! But she trots about and takes care of herself

better than she did a year or two ago, when she fell upon
the stone hall floor and raised a great "bo-bo" on her forehead.

Pelagie was hurt and angry enough about it; and she ordered rugs
and buffalo robes to be brought and laid thick upon the tiles, till

the little one's steps were surer.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline." She was saying it aloud

--"faire mal a Pauline."
But she gazes beyond the salon, back into the big dining hall,

where the white crepe myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has
circled. It has struck Ma'ame Pelagie full on the breast. She

does not know it. She is beyond there in the dining hall, where
her father sits with a group of friends over their wine. As usual

they are talking politics. How tiresome! She has heard them say
"la guerre" oftener than once. La guerre. Bah! She and Felix have

something pleasanter to talk about, out under the oaks, or back in
the shadow of the oleanders.

But they were right! The sound of a cannon, shot at Sumter,
has rolled across the Southern States, and its echo is heard along

the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse.
Yet Pelagie does not believe it. Not till La Ricaneuse stands

before her with bare, black arms akimbo, uttering a volley of vile
abuse and of brazen impudence. Pelagie wants to kill her. But yet

she will not believe. Not till Felix comes to her in the chamber
above the dining hall--there where that trumpet vine hangs--comes

to say good-by to her. The hurt which the big brass buttons of his
new gray uniform pressed into the tender flesh of her bosom has

never left it. She sits upon the sofa, and he beside her, both
speechless with pain. That room would not have been altered. Even

the sofa would have been there in the same spot, and Ma'ame Pelagie
had meant all along, for thirty years, all along, to lie there upon

it some day when the time came to die.
But there is no time to weep, with the enemy at the door. The

door has been no barrier. They are clattering through the halls
now, drinking the wines, shattering the crystal and glass, slashing

the portraits.
One of them stands before her and tells her to leave the

house. She slaps his face. How the stigma stands out red as blood
upon his blanched cheek!

Now there is a roar of fire and the flames are bearing down
upon her motionless figure. She wants to show them how a daughter

of Louisiana can perish before her conquerors. But little Pauline
clings to her knees in an agony of terror. Little Pauline must be

saved.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline." Again she is saying it

aloud--"faire mal a Pauline."
The night was nearly spent; Ma'ame Pelagie had glided from the

bench upon which she had rested, and for hours lay prone upon the
stone flagging, motionless. When she dragged herself to her feet

it was to walk like one in a dream. About the great, solemn
pillars, one after the other, she reached her arms, and pressed her

cheek and her lips upon the senseless brick.
"Adieu, adieu!" whispered Ma'ame Pelagie.

There was no longer the moon to guide her steps across the
familiar pathway to the cabin. The brightest light in the sky was

Venus, that swung low in the east. The bats had ceased to beat
their wings about the ruin. Even the mocking-bird that had warbled

for hours in the old mulberry-tree had sung himself asleep. That
darkest hour before the day was mantling the earth. Ma'ame Pelagie

hurried through the wet, clinging grass, beating aside the heavy
moss that swept across her face, walking on toward the cabin-toward

Pauline. Not once did she look back upon the ruin that brooded
like a huge monster--a black spot in the darkness that enveloped

it.
IV

Little more than a year later the transformation which the old
Valmet place had undergone was the talk and wonder of Cote Joyeuse.

One would have looked in vain for the ruin; it was no longer there;
neither was the log cabin. But out in the open, where the sun

shone upon it, and the breezes blew about it, was a shapely
structure fashioned from woods that the forests of the State had

furnished. It rested upon a solid foundation of brick.
Upon a corner of the pleasant gallery sat Leandre smoking his

afternoon cigar, and chatting with neighbors who had called. This
was to be his pied a terre now; the home where his sisters and