's
grave."

They had retraced their course and again entered the bayou, from which
the light had now nearly vanished, making it needful that they watch
carefully to escape the hewn logs that floated in numbers upon the
water.

"I didn't suppose you were ever sad, Gregoire," Melicent said gently.

"Oh my! yes;" with frank acknowledgment. "You ain't ever seen me w'en
I was real lonesome. 'Tain't so bad sence you come. But times w'en I
git to thinkin' 'bout home, I'm boun' to cry--seems like I can't he'p
it."

"Why did you ever leave home?" she asked sympathetically.

"You see w'en father died, fo' year ago, mother she went back to
France, t'her folks there; she never could stan' this country--an'
lef' us boys to manage the place. Hec, he took charge the firs' year
an' run it in debt. Placide an' me did'n' have no betta luck the naxt
year. Then the creditors come up from New Orleans an' took holt.
That's the time I packed my duds an' lef'."

"And you came here?"

"No, not at firs'. You see the Santien boys had a putty hard name in
the country. Aunt Therese, she'd fallen out with father years ago
'bout the way, she said, he was bringin' us up. Father, he wasn't the
man to take nothin' from nobody. Never 'lowed any of us to come down
yere. I was in Texas, goin' to the devil I reckon, w'en she sent for
me, an' yere I am."

"And here you ought to stay, Gregoire."

"Oh, they ain't no betta woman in the worl' then Aunt Therese, w'en
you do like she wants. See 'em yonda waitin' fur us? Reckon they
thought we was drowned."

IV

A Small Interruption.

When Melicent came to visit her brother, Mrs. Lafirme persuaded him to
abandon his uncomfortable quarters at the mill and take up his
residence in the cottage, which stood just beyond the lawn of the big
house. This cottage had been furnished _de pied en cap_ many years
before, in readiness against an excess of visitors, which in days gone
by was not of infrequent occurrence at Place-du-Bois. It was
Melicent's delighted intention to keep house here. And she foresaw no
obstacle in the way of procuring the needed domestic aid in a place
which was clearly swarming with idle women and children.

"Got a cook yet, Mel?" was Hosmer's daily enquiry on returning home,
to which Melicent was as often forced to admit that she had no cook,
but was not without abundant hope of procuring one.

Betsy's Aunt Cynthy had promised with a sincerity which admitted not
of doubt,