elf to be dead and buried,
and had seen it rise to life again, and fallen captive to it. So he
was drawing near to Carancro. Make haste, Bonaventure!

CHAPTER IX.

THE WEDDING.

A horse and buggy have this moment been stopped and are standing on a
faint rise of ground seven miles out beyond the south-western outskirt
of Carancro. The two male occupants of the vehicle are lifting their
heads, and looking with well-pleased faces at something out over the
plain. You know the cure?--and the ex-governor.

In the far distance, across the vast level, something that looks
hardly so large on the plain as an ant on the floor, is moving this
way across it. This is what the cure and his friend are watching. Open
in the cure's hand, as if he had just read it aloud again, is that
last letter of Bonaventure's, sent ahead of him from New Orleans and
received some days ago. The governor holds the reins.

What do they see? Some traveller afoot? Can it be that Bonaventure is
in sight? That is not even the direction from which Bonaventure, when
he comes, will appear. No, speck though it is, the object they are
looking at is far larger than a man afoot, or any horse, or horse and
caleche. It is a house. It is on wheels, and is drawn by many yoke of
oxen. From what the cure is saying we gather that Sosthene has bought
this very small dwelling from a neighbor, and is moving it to land of
his own. Two great beams have been drawn under the sills at each end,
the running gear of two heavy ox-wagons is made to bear up the four
ends of these beams, all is lashed firmly into place, the oxen are
slowly pulling, the long whips are cracking, the house is answering
the gentle traction, and, already several miles away from its first
site, it will to-morrow settle down upon new foundations, a homely
type of one whose wreath will soon be a-making, and who will soon
after come to be the little house's mistress.

But what have we done--let time slip backward? A little; not much; for
just then, as the ex-governor said, "And where is Bonaventure by this
time?" Bonaventure had been only an hour or two in the negro-cabin
where fever had dragged him down.

Since then the house had not only settled safely upon its new
foundations, but Sosthene, in the good, thorough way that was his own,
had carried renovation to a point that made the cottage to all
intents and purposes a new house. And the cure had looked upon it
again, much nearer by; for befor