ncarnation of your _grand'mere_--a Creole incarnation of that young
'Maud'--what I see plainest is she. I see her here, two thousand miles
from home, with but three or four friends among a quarter of a million
enemies. I see her on the day the city fell, looking up and down Royal
Street from a balcony of the hotel, while from the great dome a few
steps behind her the Union fleet could be seen, rounding the first two
river bends below the harbor, engaging a last few Confederate guns at
the old battle-ground, and coming on, with the Stars and Stripes at
every peak. I see her----"

"She was beautiful, you know--_grand'mere_."

"Yes, I see her so, looking down from that balcony, awestruck, not
fearstruck, on the people who in agonies of rage and terror fled the
city by pairs and families, or in armed squads and unarmed mobs swept
through the streets and up and down the levee, burning, breaking, and
plundering."

"But that was the worst anybody did, you know."

"Oh, yes. We never knew till to-day's war came how humane that war
was. It wasn't a war in which beauty, age, and infancy were hideous
perils."

"Ah, never mind about that to-day. But about _grandpere_ and
_grand'mere_ go on. Let me see how much you can imagine correctly,
h'm?"

"Please, mademoiselle, no. Time has made you--through your father's
eyes--they say you have them--an eye-witness. So next you see your
_grandpere_ getting back at last, by ship--go on."

"Yes, I see that, in a harbor whose miles of wharfs without ships cried
to him: 'our occupation and your fortune are gone!' Also I see him
again in the streets--Royal, Chartres, Canal, Carondelet--where old
friends pass him with a stare. I see him and _grand'mere_ married at
last, in a church nearly empty and even the priest unfriendly."

"Had he no new friends, Unionists?"

"Not yet, at the wedding. There he said: 'Old friends or none.' And
that was right, don't you think? Later 'twas different. You see, in
the navy, both of the rivers and the sea, as likewise the army,
_grand'mere_ had uncles and cousins; and when the hotel was made a
military hospital she was there every day. And naturally those
cousins, whether from hospital or no, would call and even bring
friends. Well, of course, _grandpere_ was, at the least, courteous!
And then there was his word of honor, to Mr. Lincoln, as also his own
desire, to bring the State back into the Union."

"Of course. Don't hurry, please."