."
Forty years had passed since he was last in America. The thirteen States
had become twenty-four. He had visited Joseph Bonaparte, the grave of
Washington, and the battle-field of Yorktown. His reception in the South
had been an outpouring of hearts. And now he had turned aside from the
great Mississippi to see Kaskaskia, the romantic town of the vanished
French empire of the Mississippi.

Mary and Waubeno waited outside of the door. The Indian woman listened
for a time to the gay music, and watched the bright uniforms as they
passed to and fro under the glittering astrals. At last an American
officer came down the steps, lifted his hat, and said to the two Indians
and to Jasper:

"Follow me."

Lafayette had already received the public men of the place. Airy music
arose, and the officials and their wives and guests were going through
the form of the old court minuet.

The music of Mozart's Don Giovanni minuet has been heard in a thousand
halls of state and at the festivals of many lands. We may imagine the
charm that such music had here, in this oaken room of the forest and
prairie. At the head of the plumed ladies and men in glittering uniforms
stood the Marquis of France, whom the world delighted to honor, and led
the stately obeisances to the picturesque movement of the music under
the flags and astrals. A remnant of the old romantic French families
were there, soldiers of the Revolution, the leaders of the new order of
American life, Governor Coles and his officers, and rich traders of St.
Louis. As the music swayed these stately forms backward and forward with
the fascinating poetry of motion that can hardly be called a dance, the
two Indian faces caught the spirit of the scene. Waubeno had never heard
the music of the minuet before, and the strains entranced him as they
rose and fell.

[Illustration: Minuet from Don Giovanni.

BY MOZART. ARR. BY CARL ERICH.

Published by the permission of Arthur P. Schmidt.

Copyright, 1880, by Carl Pruefer.]

After the minuet, Lafayette and Governor Coles received the
towns-people, and among the first to be presented to the marquis was
Mary Panisciowa.

She bowed modestly, and told him her simple tale. The marquis listened
at first with courtly interest, then with profound emotion. She drew
from her bosom the letter that he had written to her father, the chief.
His own writing brought before him the scenes of almost a half-century
gone, the struggle for liberty in