of St.
Martinville.

Wherever you went, whoever you met, the ball was the subject of all
conversation. All the costumes, masculine and feminine, were prepared in
profound secrecy. Each one vowed to astonish, dazzle, surpass his
neighbor. My father, forgetting the presents from Alix, gave us ever so
much money and begged Madame du Clozel to oversee our toilets; but what
was the astonishment of the dear baroness to see us buy only some vials of
perfumery and two papers of pins. We paid ten dollars for each vial and
fifteen for the pins!

Celeste invited us to see her costume the moment it reached her. It
certainly did great honor to the dressmaker of St. Martinville. The dress
was simply made, of very fine white muslin caught up _en paniers_ on a
skirt of blue satin. Her beautiful black hair was to be fastened with a
pearl comb, and to go between its riquettes she showed us two bunches of
forget-me-nots as blue as her eyes. The extremely long-pointed waist of
her dress was of the same color as the petticoat, was decollete, and on
the front had a drapery of white muslin held in place by a bunch of
forget-me-nots falling to the end of the point. In the whole village she
could get no white gloves. She would have to let that pass and show her
round white arms clasped with two large bracelets of pearls. She showed
also a necklace and earrings of pearls.

Madame du Clozel, slave to the severe etiquette of that day, did not
question us, but did go so far as to say in our presence that camayeu was
never worn at night.

"We know that, madame," replied my sister, slightly hurt. We decided to
show our dresses to our hostess. We arranged them on the bed. When the
baroness and her daughter entered our chamber they stood stupefied. The
baroness spoke first.

"Oh, the villains! How they have fooled us! These things are worthy of a
queen. They are court costumes."

I said to myself, "Poor, dear little Alix!"

FOOTNOTES:
[17] Ancestor of the late Judge Alcibiade de Blanc of St. Martinville,
noted in Reconstruction days.--TRANSLATOR.
[18] By avoiding the Spanish custom-house.--TRANSLATOR.
[19] This seems to be simply a girl's thoughtless guess. She reports Alix
as saying that Madelaine and she "were married nearly at the same time."
But this tiny, frail, spiritual Alix, who between twenty-two and
twenty-three looked scant sixteen, could hardly, even in those times, have
been married under the age of fifteen, that is not before 1