see again, and I was swallowed up. Then
Suzanne would make fun of me and Alix would caress me, and that did me
good. There were many bayous,--a labyrinth, as papa said,--and Mario had
his map at hand showing the way. Sometimes it seemed impracticable, and it
was only by great efforts of our men ["no zomme," says the original] that
we could pass on. One thing is sure--those who traverse those same lakes
and bayous to-day have not the faintest idea of what they were [il zete]
in 1795.

Great vines hung down from lofty trees that shaded the banks and crossed
one another a hundred--a thousand--ways to prevent the boat's passage and
retard its progress, as if the devil himself was mixed in it; and,
frankly, I believe that he had something to do with us in that cavern.
Often our emigrants were forced to take their axes and hatchets in hand to
open a road. At other times tree-trunks, heaped upon one another,
completely closed a bayou. Then think what trouble there was to unbar that
gate and pass through. And, to make all complete, troops of hungry
alligators clambered upon the sides of our flatboat with jaws open to
devour us. There was much outcry; I fled, Alix fled with me, Suzanne
laughed. But our men were always ready for them with their guns.

FOOTNOTES:
[12] Flowing, not into, but out of, the Mississippi, and, like it, towards
the Gulf.--Translator.

VI.

THE TWICE-MARRIED COUNTESS.

But with all the sluggishness of the flatboat, the toils, the anxieties,
and the frights, what happy times, what gay moments, we passed together on
the rough deck of our rude vessel, or in the little cells that we called
our bedrooms.

It was in these rooms, when the sun was hot on deck, that my sister and I
would join Alix to learn from her a new stitch in embroidery, or some of
the charming songs she had brought from France and which she accompanied
with harp or guitar.

Often she read to us, and when she grew tired put the book into my hands
or Suzanne's, and gave us precious lessons in reading, as she had in
singing and in embroidery. At times, in these moments of intimacy, she
made certain half-disclosures that astonished us more and more. One day
Suzanne took between her own two hands that hand so small and delicate and
cried out all at once:

"How comes it, Alix, that you wear two wedding rings?"

"Because," she sweetly answered, "if it gives you pleasure to know, I have
been twice married."

We both exclaimed w