s
surrounded it.

Thirty years later, only the thick walls were standing, with the dull
red brick showing here and there through a matted growth of clinging
vines. The huge round pillars were intact; so to some extent was the
stone flagging of hall and portico. There had been no home so stately
along the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse. Every one knew that, as they
knew it had cost Philippe Valmet sixty thousand dollars to build, away
back in 1840. No one was in danger of forgetting that fact, so long as
his daughter Pelagie survived. She was a queenly, white-haired woman of
fifty. "Ma'ame Pelagie," they called her, though she was unmarried, as
was her sister Pauline, a child in Ma'ame Pelagie's eyes; a child of
thirty-five.

The two lived alone in a three-roomed cabin, almost within the shadow of
the ruin. They lived for a dream, for Ma'ame Pelagie's dream, which was
to rebuild the old home.

It would be pitiful to tell how their days were spent to accomplish this
end; how the dollars had been saved for thirty years and the picayunes
hoarded; and yet, not half enough gathered! But Ma'ame Pelagie felt sure
of twenty years of life before her, and counted upon as many more for
her sister. And what could not come to pass in twenty--in forty--years?

Often, of pleasant afternoons, the two would drink their black coffee,
seated upon the stone-flagged portico whose canopy was the blue sky of
Louisiana. They loved to sit there in the silence, with only each other
and the sheeny, prying lizards for company, talking of the old times
and planning for the new; while light breezes stirred the tattered vines
high up among the columns, where owls nested.

"We can never hope to have all just as it was, Pauline," Ma'ame Pelagie
would say; "perhaps the marble pillars of the salon will have to be
replaced by wooden ones, and the crystal candelabra left out. Should you
be willing, Pauline?"

"Oh, yes Sesoeur, I shall be willing." It was always, "Yes, Sesoeur," or
"No, Sesoeur," "Just as you please, Sesoeur," with poor little Mam'selle
Pauline. For what did she remember of that old life and that old
spendor? Only a faint gleam here and there; the half-consciousness of
a young, uneventful existence; and then a great crash. That meant the
nearness of war; the revolt of slaves; confusion ending in fire and
flame through which she was borne safely in the strong arms of Pelagie,
and carried to the log cabin which was still their home. Thei