liant
one; their social relations close and warm; their houses full
of rare welcome and discriminating bounty. Those friends, said
Grandemont, should once more, if never again, sit at Charleroi on
a nineteenth of January to celebrate the festal day of his house.

Grandemont had his cards of invitation engraved. They were
expensive, but beautiful. In one particular their good taste might
have been disputed; but the Creole allowed himself that one feather
in the cap of his fugacious splendour. Might he not be allowed, for
the one day of the _renaissance_, to be "Grandemont du Puy Charles,
of Charleroi"? He sent the invitations out early in January so that
the guests might not fail to receive due notice.

At eight o'clock in the morning of the nineteenth, the lower coast
steamboat _River Belle_ gingerly approached the long unused landing
at Charleroi. The bridge was lowered, and a swarm of the plantation
hands streamed along the rotting pier, bearing ashore a strange
assortment of freight. Great shapeless bundles and bales and packets
swathed in cloth and bound with ropes; tubs and urns of palms,
evergreens, and tropical flowers; tables, mirrors, chairs, couches,
carpets, and pictures--all carefully bound and padded against the
dangers of transit.

Grandemont was among them, the busiest there. To the safe conveyance
of certain large hampers eloquent with printed cautions to delicate
handling he gave his superintendence, for they contained the fragile
china and glassware. The dropping of one of those hampers would have
cost him more than he could have saved in a year.

The last article unloaded, the _River Belle_ backed off and
continued her course down stream. In less than an hour everything
had been conveyed to the house. And came then Absalom's task,
directing the placing of the furniture and wares. There was plenty
of help, for that day was always a holiday at Charleroi, and the
Negroes did not suffer the old traditions to lapse. Almost the
entire population of the quarters volunteered their aid. A score
of piccaninnies were sweeping at the leaves in the yard. In the
big kitchen at the rear Andre was lording it with his old-time
magnificence over his numerous sub-cooks and scullions. Shutters
were flung wide; dust spun in clouds; the house echoed to voices and
the tread of busy feet. The prince had come again, and Charleroi
woke from its long sleep.

The full moon, as she rose across the river that night and peep