ook his head, and bent toward his
speaker.

"Friend Perkins," said Mr. Tarbox, in muffled voice--

"'So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave, at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'

"Don't let the newspapers get hold of it--good-night."

But it was only at daybreak that Mr. Tarbox disordered the drapery of
his couch to make believe he had slept there, and at sunrise he was
gone to find Claude.

CHAPTER VII.

'THANASE'S VIOLIN.

Had Marguerite gone to New Orleans the better to crush Claude out of
her heart? No, no! Her mother gave an explanation interesting and
reasonable enough, and at the same time less uncomfortably romantic.
Marguerite had gone to the city to pursue studies taught better there
than in Opelousas; especially music.

Back of this was a reason which she had her mother's promise not to
mention,--the physician's recommendation--a change of scene. He spoke
of slight malarial influences, and how many odd forms they took; of
dyspepsia and its queer freaks; of the confining nature of house
cares, and of how often they "ran down the whole system." His phrases
were French, but they had all the weary triteness of these; while
Marguerite rejoiced that he did not suspect the real ailment, and
Zosephine saw that he divined it perfectly.

A change of scene. Marguerite had treated the suggestion lightly, as
something amusingly out of proportion to her trivial disorder, but
took pains not to reject it. Zosephine had received it with troubled
assent, and mentioned the small sugar-farm and orangery of the kinsman
Robichaux, down on Bayou Terrebonne. But the physician said, "If that
would not be too dull;" mentioned, casually, the city, and saw
Marguerite lighten up eagerly. The city was chosen; the physician's
sister, living there, would see Marguerite comfortably established.
All was presently arranged.

"And you can take your violin with you, and study music," he said.
Marguerite had one, and played it with a taste and skill that knew no
competitor in all the surrounding region.

It had belonged to her father. Before she was born, all Lafayet