'SIEUR GEORGE.
In the heart of New Orleans stands a large four-story brick building,that has so stood for about three-quarters of a century. Its rooms arerented to a class of persons occupying them simply for lack of activityto find better and cheaper quarters elsewhere. With its gray stuccopeeling off in broad patches, it has a solemn look of gentility in rags,and stands, or, as it were, hangs, about the corner of two ancientstreets, like a faded fop who pretends to be looking for employment.
Under its main archway is a dingy apothecary-shop. On one street is thebazaar of a _modiste en robes et chapeaux_ and other humble shops; onthe other, the immense batten doors with gratings over the lintels,barred and bolted with masses of cobwebbed iron, like the door of adonjon, are overhung by a creaking sign (left by the sheriff), on whichis faintly discernible the mention of wines and liquors. A peep throughone of the shops reveals a square court within, hung with many lines ofwet clothes, its sides hugged by rotten staircases that seem vainlytrying to clamber out of the rubbish.
The neighborhood is one long since given up to fifth-rate shops, whosemasters and mistresses display such enticing mottoes as "_Au gagnepetit!_" Innumerable children swarm about, and, by some charm of theplace, are not run over, but obstruct the sidewalks playing theirclamorous games.
The building is a thing of many windows, where passably good-lookingwomen appear and disappear, clad in cotton gowns, watering littleoutside shelves of flowers and cacti, or hanging canaries' cages. Theirhusbands are keepers in wine-warehouses, rent-collectors for the agentsof old Frenchmen who have been laid up to dry in Paris, custom-housesupernumeraries and court-clerks' deputies (for your second-rate Creoleis a great seeker for little offices). A decaying cornice hangs over,dropping bits of mortar on passers below, like a boy at aboarding-house.
The landlord is one Kookoo, an ancient Creole of doubtful purity ofblood, who in his landlordly old age takes all suggestions of repairs aspersonal insults. He was but a stripling when his father left him thisinheritance, and has grown old and wrinkled and brown, a sort ofperiodically animate mummy, in the business. He smokes cascarilla, wearsvelveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner.
To Kookoo's venerable property a certain old man used for many years tocome every evening, stumbling through the groups of prattling childrenwho frolicked about in the early moonlight--whose name no one knew, butwhom all the neighbors designated by the title of 'Sieur George. It washis wont to be seen taking a straight--too straight--course toward hishome, never careening to right or left, but now forcing himself slowlyforward, as though there were a high gale in front, and now scuddingbriskly ahead at a ridiculous little dog-trot, as if there were atornado behind. He would go up the main staircase very carefully,sometimes stopping half-way up for thirty or forty minutes' doze, butgetting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in thesecond story, with no little elation to find it still there. Were it notfor these slight symptoms of potations, he was such a one as you wouldpick out of a thousand for a miser. A year or two ago he suddenlydisappeared.
A great many years ago, when the old house was still new, a young manwith no baggage save a small hair-trunk, came and took the room I havementioned and another adjoining. He supposed he might stay fiftydays--and he staid fifty years and over. This was a very fashionableneighborhood, and he kept the rooms on that account month after month.
But when he had been here about a year something happened to him, so itwas rumored, that greatly changed the tenor of his life; and from thattime on there began to appear in him and to accumulate upon each otherin a manner which became the profound study of Kookoo, the symptoms of adecay, whose cause baffled the landlord's limited powers of conjecturefor well-nigh half a century. Hints of a duel, of a reason warped, ofdisinheritance, and many other unauthorized rumors, fluttered up andfloated off, while he became recluse, and, some say, began incidentallyto betray the unmanly habit which we have already noticed. His neighborswould have continued neighborly had he allowed them, but he never lethimself be understood, and _les Americains_ are very droll anyhow; so,as they could do nothing else, they cut him.
So exclusive he became that (though it may have been for economy) henever admitted even a housemaid, but kept his apartments himself. Onlythe merry serenaders, who in those times used to sing under thebalconies, would now and then give him a crumb of their feast for purefun's sake; and after a while, because they could not find out his fullname, called him, at hazard, George--but always prefixing Monsieur.Afterward, when he began to be careless in his dress, and the fashion ofserenading had passed away, the commoner people dared to shorten thetitle to "'Sieur George."
Many seasons came and went. The city changed like a growing boy;gentility and fashion went uptown, but 'Sieur George still retained hisrooms. Every one knew him slightly, and bowed, but no one seemed to knowhim well, unless it were a brace or so of those convivial fellows inregulation-blue at little Fort St. Charles. He often came home late,with one of these on either arm, all singing different tunes andstopping at every twenty steps to tell secrets. But by and by the fortwas demolished, church and goverment property melted down under the warmdemand for building-lots, the city spread like a ringworm,--and one day'Sieur George steps out of the old house in full regimentals!
The Creole neighbors rush bareheaded into the middle of the street, asthough there were an earthquake or a chimney on fire. What to do or sayor think they do not know; they are at their wits' ends, thereforewell-nigh happy. However, there is a German blacksmith's shop near by,and they watch to see what _Jacob_ will do. Jacob steps into the streetwith every eye upon him; he approaches Monsieur--he addresses to him afew remarks--they shake hands--they engage in some conversation--Monsieurplaces his hand on his sword!--now Monsieur passes.
The populace crowd around the blacksmith, children clap their handssoftly and jump up and down on tiptoes of expectation--'Sieur George isgoing to the war in Mexico!
"Ah!" says a little girl in the throng, '"Sieur George's two rooms willbe empty; I find that very droll."
The landlord,--this same Kookoo,--is in the group. He hurls himself intothe house and up the stairs. "Fifteen years pass since he have been inthose room!" He arrives at the door--it is shut--"It is lock!"
In short, further investigation revealed that a youngish lady in black,who had been seen by several neighbors to enter the house, but had not,of course, been suspected of such remarkable intentions, had, in companywith a middle-aged slave-woman, taken these two rooms, and now, at theslightly-opened door, proffered a month's rent in advance. What could alandlord do but smile? Yet there was a pretext left "the rooms must needrepairs?"--"No, sir; he could look in and see." Joy! he looked in. Allwas neatness. The floor unbroken, the walls cracked but a little, andthe cracks closed with new plaster, no doubt by the jealous hand of'Sieur George himself Kookoo's eyes swept sharply round the twoapartments. The furniture was all there. Moreover, there was Monsieur'slittle hair-trunk. He should not soon forget that trunk. One day,fifteen years or more before, he had taken hold of that trunk to assistMonsieur to arrange his apartment, and Monsieur had drawn his fist backand cried to him to "drop it!" _Mais!_ there it was, looking verysuspicious in Kookoo's eyes, and the lady's domestic, as tidy as ayellow-bird, went and sat on it. Could that trunk contain treasure? Itmight, for Madame wanted to shut the door, and, in fact, did so.
The lady was quite handsome--had been more so, but was stillyoung--spoke the beautiful language, and kept, in the inner room, herdiscreet and taciturn mulattress, a tall, straight woman, with a fierceeye, but called by the young Creoles of the neighborhood "confound' goodlookin'."
Among _les Americaines_, where the new neighbor always expects to becalled upon by the older residents, this lady might have made friends inspite of being as reserved as 'Sieur George; but the reverse being theCreole custom, and she being well pleased to keep her own company, chosemystery rather than society.
The poor landlord was sorely troubled; it must not that any thin
g _detrop_ take place in his house. He watched the two rooms narrowly, butwithout result, save to find that Madame plied her needle for pay, spenther money for little else besides harpstrings, and took good care of thelittle trunk of Monsieur. This espionage was a good turn to the mistressand maid, for when Kookoo announced that all was proper, no more wassaid by outsiders. Their landlord never got but one question answered bythe middle-aged maid:
"Madame, he feared, was a litt' bit embarrass' _pour_ money, eh?"
"_Non_; Mademoiselle [Mademoiselle, you notice!] had some property, butdid not want to eat it up."
Sometimes lady-friends came, in very elegant private carriages, to seeher, and one or two seemed to beg her--but in vain--to go away withthem; but these gradually dropped off, until lady and servant were alonein the world. And so years, and the Mexican war, went by.
The volunteers came home; peace reigned, and the city went on spreadingup and down the land; but 'Sieur George did not return. It overran thecountry like cocoa-grass. Fields, roads, woodlands, that were once'Sieur George's places of retreat from mankind, were covered all overwith little one-story houses in the "Old Third," and fine residences andgardens up in "Lafayette." Streets went slicing like a butcher's knife,through old colonial estates, whose first masters never dreamed of thecity reaching them,--and 'Sieur George was still away. The four-storybrick got old and ugly, and the surroundings dim and dreamy. Theatres,processions, dry-goods stores, government establishments, banks, hotels,and all spirit of enterprise were gone to Canal Street and beyond, andthe very beggars were gone with them. The little trunk got very old andbald, and still its owner lingered; still the lady, somewhat the worsefor lapse of time, looked from the balcony-window in the brief southerntwilights, and the maid every morning shook a worn rug or two over thedangerous-looking railing; and yet neither had made friends or enemies.
The two rooms, from having been stingily kept at first, were needingrepairs half the time, and the occupants were often moving, now intoone, now back into the other; yet the hair-trunk was seen only byglimpses, the landlord, to his infinite chagrin, always being a littletoo late in offering his services, the women, whether it was light orheavy, having already moved it. He thought it significant.
Late one day of a most bitter winter,--that season when, to the ecstaticamazement of a whole city-full of children, snow covered the streetsankle-deep,--there came a soft tap on the corridor-door of this pair ofrooms. The lady opened it, and beheld a tall, lank, iron-gray man, atotal stranger, standing behind--Monsieur George! Both men wereweather-beaten, scarred, and tattered. Across 'Sieur George's crown,leaving a long, bare streak through his white hair, was the souvenir ofa Mexican sabre.
The landlord had accompanied them to the door: it was a magnificentopportunity. Mademoiselle asked them all in, and tried to furnish a seatto each; but failing, 'Sieur George went straight across the room and_sat on the hair-trunk_. The action was so conspicuous, the landlordlaid it up in his penetrative mind.
'Sieur George was quiet, or, as it appeared, quieted. The mulattressstood near him, and to her he addressed, in an undertone, most of thelittle he said, leaving Mademoiselle to his companion. The stranger wasa warm talker, and seemed to please the lady from the first; but if hepleased, nothing else did. Kookoo, intensely curious, sought somepretext for staying, but found none. They were, altogether, anuncongenial company. The lady seemed to think Kookoo had no businessthere; 'Sieur George seemed to think the same concerning his companion;and the few words between Mademoiselle and 'Sieur George were coolenough. The maid appeared nearly satisfied, but could not avoid castingan anxious eye at times upon her mistress. Naturally the visit wasshort.
The next day but one the two gentlemen came again in better attire.'Sieur George evidently disliked his companion, yet would not ridhimself of him. The stranger was a gesticulating, stagy fellow, muchMonsieur's junior, an incessant talker in Creole-French, always excitedon small matters and unable to appreciate a great one. Once, as theywere leaving, Kookoo,--accidents will happen,--was under the stairs. Asthey began to descend the tall man was speaking: "--better to buryit,"--the startled landlord heard him say, and held his breath, thinkingof the trunk; but no more was uttered.
A week later they came again.
A week later they came again.
A week later they came yet again!
The landlord's eyes began to open. There must be a courtship inprogress. It was very plain now why 'Sieur George had wished not to beaccompanied by the rail gentleman; but since his visits had becomeregular and frequent, it was equally plain why he did not get rid ofhim;--because it would not look well to be going and coming too oftenalone. Maybe it was only this tender passion that the tall man hadthought "better to bury." Lately there often came sounds of gayconversation from the first of the two rooms, which had been turned intoa parlor; and as, week after week, the friends came down-stairs, thetall man was always in high spirits and anxious to embrace 'SieurGeorge, who,--"sly dog," thought the landlord,--would try to lookgrave, and only smiled in an embarrassed way. "Ah! Monsieur, you tink tobe varry conning; _mais_ you not so conning as Kookoo, no;" and theinquisitive little man would shake his head and smile, and shake hishead again, as a man has a perfect right to do under the conviction thathe has been for twenty years baffled by a riddle and is learning to readit at last; he had guessed what was in 'Sieur George's head, he would byand by guess what was in the trunk.
A few months passed quickly away, and it became apparent to every eye inor about the ancient mansion that the landlord's guess was not so bad;in fact, that Mademoiselle was to be married.
On a certain rainy spring afternoon, a single hired hack drove up to themain entrance of the old house, and after some little bustle and thegathering of a crowd of damp children about the big doorway, 'SieurGeorge, muffled in a newly-repaired overcoat, jumped out and wentup-stairs. A moment later he re-appeared, leading Mademoiselle, wreathedand veiled, down the stairway. Very fair was Mademoiselle still. Herbeauty was mature,--fully ripe,--maybe a little too much so, but only alittle; and as she came down with the ravishing odor of bridal flowersfloating about her, she seemed the garlanded victim of a pagansacrifice. The mulattress in holiday gear followed behind.
The landlord owed a duty to the community. He arrested the maid on thelast step: "Your mistress, she goin' _pour marier_ 'Sieur George? Itmake me glad, glad, glad!"
"Marry 'Sieur George? Non, Monsieur."
"Non? Not marrie 'Sieur George? _Mais comment_?"
"She's going to marry the tall gentleman."
"_Diable!_ ze long gentyman!"--With his hands upon his forehead, hewatched the carriage trundle away. It passed out of sight through therain; he turned to enter the house, and all at once tottered under theweight of a tremendous thought--they had left the trunk! He hurledhimself up-stairs as he had done seven years before, but again--"Ah,bah!!"--the door was locked, and not a picayune of rent due.
Late that night a small square man, in a wet overcoat, fumbled his wayinto the damp entrance of the house, stumbled up the cracking stairs,unlocked, after many languid efforts, the door of the two rooms, andfalling over the hair-trunk, slept until the morning sunbeams climbedover the balcony and in at the window, and shone full on the back of hishead. Old Kookoo, passing the door just then, was surprised to find itslightly ajar--pushed it open silently, and saw, within, 'Sieur Georgein the act of rising from his knees beside the mysterious trunk! He hadcome back to be once more the tenant of the two rooms.
'Sieur George, for the second time, was a changed man--changed from badto worse; from being retired and reticent, he had come, by reason ofadvancing years, or mayhap that which had left the terrible scar on hisface, to be garrulous. When, once in a while, employment sought him (forhe never sought employment), whatever remuneration he received went itsway for something that left him dingy and threadbare. He now made alively acquaintance with his landlord, as, indeed, with every soul inthe neighborhood, and told all his adventures in Mexican prisons andCuban c
ities; including full details of the hardships and perilsexperienced jointly with the "long gentleman" who had marriedMademoiselle, and who was no Mexican or Cuban, but a genuineLouisianian.
"It was he that fancied me," he said, "not I him; but once he had fallenin love with me I hadn't the force to cast him off. How Madame evershould have liked him was one of those woman's freaks that a man mustn'texpect to understand. He was no more fit for her than rags are fit for aqueen; and I could have choked his head off the night he hugged me roundthe neck and told me what a suicide she had committed. But other finewomen are committing that same folly every day, only they don't waituntil they're thirty-four or five to do it.--'Why don't I like him?'Well, for one reason, he's a drunkard!" Here Kookoo, whose imperfectknowledge of English prevented his intelligent reception of the story,would laugh as if the joke came in just at this point.
However, with all Monsieur's prattle, he never dropped a word about theman he had been before he went away; and the great hair-trunk puzzle wasstill the same puzzle, growing greater every day.
Thus the two rooms had been the scene of some events quite queer, if notreally strange; but the queerest that ever they presented, I guess, was'Sieur George coming in there one day, crying like a little child, andbearing in his arms an infant--a girl--the lovely offspring of thedrunkard whom he so detested, and poor, robbed, spirit-broken and nowdead Madame. He took good care of the orphan, for orphan she was verysoon. The long gentleman was pulled out of the Old Basin one morning,and 'Sieur George identified the body at the Treme station. He neverhired a nurse--the father had sold the lady's maid quite out of sight;so he brought her through all the little ills and around all the sharpcorners of baby-life and childhood, without a human hand to help him,until one evening, having persistently shut his eyes to it for weeks andmonths, like one trying to sleep in the sunshine, he awoke to therealization that she was a woman. It was a smoky one in November, thefirst cool day of autumn. The sunset was dimmed by the smoke of burningprairies, the air was full of the ashes of grass and reeds, raggedurchins were lugging home sticks of cordwood, and when a bit of coalfell from a cart in front of Kookoo's old house, a child was boxed halfacross the street and robbed of the booty by a _blanchisseuse de fin_from over the way.
The old man came home quite steady. He mounted the stairs smartlywithout stopping to rest, went with a step unusually light and quiet tohis chamber and sat by the window opening upon the rusty balcony.
It was a small room, sadly changed from what it had been in old times;but then so was 'Sieur George. Close and dark it was, the walls stainedwith dampness and the ceiling full of bald places that showed thelathing. The furniture was cheap and meagre, including conspicuously thesmall, curious-looking hair-trunk. The floor was of wide slabs fasteneddown with spikes, and sloping up and down in one or two broadundulations, as if they had drifted far enough down the current of timeto feel the tide-swell.
However, the floor was clean, the bed well made, the cypress table inplace, and the musty smell of the walls partly neutralized by a geraniumon the window-sill.
He so coming in and sitting down, an unseen person called from the roomadjoining (of which, also, he was still the rentee), to know if he werehe, and being answered in the affirmative, said, "Papa George guess whowas here to-day?"
"Kookoo, for the rent?"
"Yes, but he will not come back."
"No? why not?"
"Because you will not pay him."
"No? and why not?"
"Because I have paid him."
"Impossible! where did you get the money?"
"Cannot guess?--Mother Nativity."
"What, not for embroidery?"
"No? and why not? _Mais oui!_"--saying which, and with a pleasant laugh,the speaker entered the room. She was a girl of sixteen or thereabout,very beautiful, with very black hair and eyes. A face and form moreentirely out of place you could not have found in the whole city. Shesat herself at his feet, and, with her interlocked hands upon his knee,and her face, full of childish innocence mingled with womanly wisdom,turned to his, appeared for a time to take principal part in aconversation which, of course, could not be overheard in the corridoroutside.
Whatever was said, she presently rose, he opened his arms, and she saton his knee and kissed him. This done, there was a silence, both smilingpensively and gazing out over the rotten balcony into the street. Aftera while she started up, saying something about the change of weather,and, slipping away, thrust a match between the bars of the grate. Theold man turned about to the fire, and she from her little room brought alow sewing-chair and sat beside him, laying her head on his knee, and hestroking her brow with his brown palm.
And then, in an altered--a low, sad tone--he began a monotonous recital.
Thus they sat, he talking very steadily and she listening, until all theneighborhood was wrapped in slumber,--all the neighbors, but not Kookoo.
Kookoo in his old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eyetook turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were notintended for outside hearers. He heard the girl sobbing, and the old mansaying, "But you must go now. You cannot stay with me safely ordecently, much as I wish it. The Lord only knows how I'm to bear it, orwhere you're to go; but He's your Lord, child, and He'll make a placefor you. I was your grandfather's death; I frittered your poor, deadmother's fortune away: let that be the last damage I do.
"I have always meant everything for the best," he added half insoliloquy.
From all Kookoo could gather, he must have been telling her the verystory just recounted. She had dropped quite to the floor, hiding herface in her hands, and was saying between her sobs, "I cannot go, PapaGeorge; oh, Papa George, I cannot go!"
Just then 'Sieur George, kaving kept a good resolution all day, wasencouraged by the orphan's pitiful tones to contemplate the mostsenseless act he ever attempted to commit. He said to the sobbing girlthat she was not of his blood; that she was nothing to him by naturalties; that his covenant was with her grandsire to care for hisoffspring; and though it had been poorly kept, it might be breaking itworse than ever to turn her out upon ever so kind a world.
"I have tried to be good to you all these years. When I took you, a weelittle baby, I took you for better or worse. I intended to do well byyou all your childhood-days, and to do best at last. I thought surely weshould be living well by this time, and you could choose from a worldfull of homes and a world full of friends.
"I don't see how I missed it!" Here he paused a moment in meditation,and presently resumed with some suddenness:
"I thought that education, far better than Mother Nativity has givenyou, should have afforded your sweet charms a noble setting; that goodmothers and sisters would be wanting to count you into their families,and that the blossom of a happy womanhood would open perfect and full ofsweetness.
"I would have given my life for it. I did give it, such as it was; butit was a very poor concern, I know--my life--and not enough to buy anygood thing.
"I have had a thought of something, but I'm afraid to tell it. It didn'tcome to me to-day or yesterday; it has beset me a long time--formonths."
The girl gazed into the embers, listening intensely.
"And oh! dearie, if I could only get you to think the same way, youmight stay with me then."
"How long?" she asked, without stirring.
"Oh, is long as heaven should let us. But there is only one chance," hesaid, as it were feeling his way.
"only one way for us to stay together. Do you understand me?"
She looked up at the old man with a glance of painful inquiry.
"If you could be--my wife, dearie?"
She uttered a low, distressful cry, and, gliding swiftly into her room,for the first time in her young life turned the key between them.
And the old man sat and wept.
Then Kookoo, peering through the keyhole, saw that they had been lookinginto the little trunk. The lid was up, but the back was toward the door,and he could s
ee no more than if it had been closed.
He stooped and stared into the aperture until his dry old knees wereready to crack. It seemed as if 'Sieur George was stone, only stonecouldn't weep like that.
Every separate bone in his neck was hot with pain. He would have giventen dollars--ten sweet dollars!--to have seen 'Sieur George get up andturn that trunk around.
There! 'Sieur George rose up--what a face!
He started toward the bed, and as he came to the trunk he paused, lookedat it, muttered something about "ruin," and something about "fortune,"kicked the lid down and threw himself across the bed.
Small profit to old Kookoo that he went to his own couch; sleep was notfor the little landlord. For well-nigh half a century he had suspectedhis tenant of having a treasure hidden in his house, and to-night he hadheard his own admission that in the little trunk was a fortune. Kookoohad never felt so poor in all his days before. He felt a Creole's anger,too, that a tenant should be the holder of wealth while his landlordsuffered poverty.
And he knew very well, too, did Kookoo, what the tenant would do. If hedid not know what he kept in the trunk, he knew what he kept behind it,and he knew he would take enough of it to-night to make him sleepsoundly.
No one would ever have supposed Kookoo capable of a crime. He was toofearfully impressed with the extra-hazardous risks of dishonesty; he wasold, too, and weak, and, besides all, intensely a coward. Nevertheless,while it was yet two or three hours before daybreak, the sleep-forsakenlittle man arose, shuffled into his garments, and in his stocking-feetsought the corridor leading to 'Sieur George's apartment. The Novembernight, as it often does in that region, had grown warm and clear; thestars were sparkling like diamonds pendent in the deep blue heavens, andat every window and lattice and cranny the broad, bright moon poureddown its glittering beams upon the hoary-headed thief, as he crept alongthe mouldering galleries and down the ancient corridor that led to'Sieur George's chamber.
'Sieur George's door, though ever so slowly opened, protested with aloud creak. The landlord, wet with cold sweat from head to foot, andshaking till the floor trembled, paused for several minutes, and thenentered the moon-lit apartment. The tenant, lying as if he had notmoved, was sleeping heavily. And now the poor coward trembled so, thatto kneel before the trunk, without falling, he did not know how. Twice,thrice, he was near tumbling headlong. He became as cold as ice. But thesleeper stirred, and the thought of losing his opportunity strung hisnerves up in an instant. He went softly down upon his knees, laid hishands upon the lid, lifted it, and let in the intense moonlight. Thetrunk was full, full, crowded down and running over full, of the ticketsof the Havana Lottery!
A little after daybreak, Kookoo from his window saw the orphan, pausingon the corner. She stood for a moment, and then dove into the dense fogwhich had floated in from the river, and disappeared. He never saw heragain.
But her Lord is taking care of her. Once only she has seen 'SieurGeorge. She had been in the belvedere of the house which she now callshome, looking down upon the outspread city. Far away southward andwestward the great river glistened in the sunset. Along its sweepingbends the chimneys of a smoking commerce, the magazines of surpluswealth, the gardens of the opulent, the steeples of a hundredsanctuaries and thousands on thousands of mansions and hovels coveredthe fertile birthright arpents which 'Sieur George, in his fifty years'stay, had seen tricked away from dull colonial Esaus by their blue-eyedbrethren of the North. Nearer by she looked upon the forlornly silentregion of lowly dwellings, neglected by legislation and shunned by alllovers of comfort, that once had been the smiling fields of her owngrandsire's broad plantation; and but a little way off, trudging acrossthe marshy commons, her eye caught sight of 'Sieur George following thesunset out upon the prairies to find a night's rest in the high grass.
She turned at once, gathered the skirt of her pink calico uniform, and,watching her steps through her tears, descended the steep winding-stairto her frequent kneeling-place under the fragrant candles of thechapel-altar in Mother Nativity's asylum.
'Sieur George is houseless. He cannot find the orphan. Mother Nativityseems to know nothing of her. If he could find her now, and could getfrom her the use of ten dollars for but three days, he knows acombination which would repair all the past; it could not fail,he--thinks. But he cannot find her, and the letters he writes--allcontaining the one scheme--disappear in the mail-box, and there's anend.
Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life Page 21