lix uttered a cry of admiration and
went towards the house. We saw that it was uninhabited and must have been
long abandoned. The little kitchen, the poultry-house, the dovecote, were
in ruins. But the surroundings were admirable: in the rear a large court
was entirely shaded with live-oaks; in front was the green belt of orange
trees; farther away Bayou Teche, like a blue ribbon, marked a natural
boundary, and at the bottom of the picture the great trees of the forest
lifted their green-brown tops.

"Oh!" cried Alix, "if I could stay here I should be happy."

"Who knows?" replied Joseph. "The owner has left the house; he may be
dead. Who knows but I may take this place?"

"Oh! I pray you, Joseph, try. Try!" At that moment my father and Mario
appeared, looking for us, and Alix cried:

"Welcome, gentlemen, to my domain."

Joseph told of his wife's wish and his hope.... "In any case," said Mario,
"count on us. If you decide to settle here we will stay two weeks--a
month, if need be--to help you establish yourself."

As soon as we had breakfasted my father and Joseph set out for a
plantation which they saw in the distance. They found it a rich estate.
The large, well-built house was surrounded by outbuildings, stables,
granaries, and gardens; fields of cane and corn extended to the limit of
view. The owner, M. Gerbeau, was a young Frenchman. He led them into the
house, presented them to his wife, and offered them refreshments.

[M. Gerbeau tells the travelers how he had come from the Mississippi
River parish of St. Bernard to this place with all his effects in a
schooner--doubtless via the mouth of the river and the bay of Atchafalaya;
while Joseph is all impatience to hear of the little deserted home
concerning which he has inquired. But finally he explains that its owner,
a lone Swede, had died of sunstroke two years before, and M. Gerbeau's
best efforts to find, through the Swedish consul at New Orleans or
otherwise, a successor to the little estate had been unavailing. Joseph
could take the place if he would. He ended by generously forcing upon the
father of Francoise and Suzanne the free use of his traveling-carriage and
"two horses, as gentle as lambs and as swift as deer," with which to make
their journey up the Teche to St. Martinville,[15] the gay, not to say
giddy, little capital of the royalist _emigres_.]

My father wished to know what means of transport he could secure, on his
return to this point, to