m a fine old down-town Creole, a fellow
guest, with whom he was to dine the next week."

"Aha-a-a! precizely ac-rozz the street from Mme. Alexandre!" said the
hostess. "M'sieu' et Madame De l'Isle! Now I detec' that!"

"Have they no son?--or--or daughter?" he asked.

"Not any," Mme. Alexandre broke in with a significant sparkle; "juz'
the two al-lone."

"They live over my shop," Beloiseau said. "You muz' know that double
gate nex' adjoining me."

"Oh, that lovely piece of ironwork? I took that for a part of your
establishment."

"I have only the uze of it with them. My _grandpere_ he made those
gate', for the father of Mme. De l'Isle, same year he made those great
openwork gate' of Hotel St. Louis. You speak of episode'! One summer,
renovating that hotel, they paint' those gate'--of iron openwork--in
imitation--_mon Dieu_!--of marbl'! _Ciel_! the tragedy of _that_!
Yes, they live over me; in the whole square, both side' the street,
last remaining of the 'igh society."

When Mme. Alexandre finally rose to go, and had kissed the upturned
brow of her hostess, she went by an inner door and rear balcony. And
when Chester and Beloiseau began to take leave their host said to
Chester:

"You dine with M. De l'Isle Tuesday. Well, if you'll come again here
the next evening we'll attend to--that business."

"Wouldn't that be losing time? I can just as well come sooner."

"No," said madame, "better that Wednesday."

Chester was nettled, but he recovered when the ironworker walked with
him around into Bienville Street and at his _pension_ door lamented the
pathetic decay of the useful arts and of artistic taste, since the
advent of castings and machinery. The pair took such liking for each
other's tenets of beauty, morals, art, and life that Chester walked
back to the De l'Isle gates, and their parting at last was at the
corner half-way between their two domiciles.

Meanwhile madame was saying to her spouse, "Aha! you see? The power of
prayer! Ab-ove all, for the he'pless! By day the fo' corner' of my
room, by night the fo' post' of my bed, are----"

"Yes, _cherie_, I know."

"Yes, they're to me for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John! Since three
days every time I heard the cathedral clock I've prayed to them; and
now----!"

"Well, my angel? Now?"

"Well, now! He's dining there next Tuesday!"

"Truly. Yet even now we can only hope----"

"Ah, no! Me, I can also continue to supplicate! From now t