smiling
courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with
the priest.

No--Pere 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, with
something imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has an
important private matter to communicate."

"To me?" asked Jean Thompson.

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

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

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

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

"_Oui_," replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of
one of the benches, "_mo oule di' tou' c'ose_"--I want to tell
everything. "_Miche Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune_"--the best
man in the world; "_mo pas capabe li fe tracas_"--I cannot give him
trouble. "_Mo pas capabe, non; m'ole di' tous c'ose_." She attempted to
fan herself, her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested
on the ground.

"Take a seat," said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, starting
from his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner of
the bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two races
could 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 through
the gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cool
drawing-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 effort
to smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only to
look and see. I mean about Olive." She loosed a button in the front of
her dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herself
never thought of it. She does not know a word."

The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it to
Jean Thompson.

"_Ouala so