aid, touching his skull-cap, "the
water is very low. You fren'," he added, turning to me, "he stay long
time in St. Louis?"

"He is going away to-night,--in an hour or so," I answered, with
thanksgiving in my heart.

"I am sorry," said Monsieur Lenoir, politely, but his looks belied his
words. "He is ver' fond Suzanne. Peut etre he marry her, but I think
not. I come away from France to escape the fine gentlemen; long time ago
they want to run off with my wife. She was like Suzanne."

"How long ago did you come from France, Monsieur?" I asked, to get away
from an uncomfortable subject.

"It is twenty years," said he, dreamily, in French. "I was born in the
Quartier Saint Jean, on the harbor of the city of Marseilles near Notre
Dame de la Nativite." And he told of a tall, uneven house of four
stories, with a high pitched roof, and a little barred door and window at
the bottom giving out upon the rough cobbles. He spoke of the smell of
the sea, of the rollicking sailors who surged through the narrow street
to embark on his Majesty's men-of-war, and of the King's white soldiers
in ranks of four going to foreign lands. And how he had become a farmer,
the tenant of a country family. Excitement grew on him, and he mopped
his brow with his blue rumal handkerchief.

"They desire all, the nobles," he cried, "I make the land good, and they
seize it. I marry a pretty wife, and Monsieur le Comte he want her.
L'bon Dieu," he added bitterly, relapsing into French. "France is for
the King and the nobility, Monsieur. The poor have but little chance
there. In the country I have seen the peasants eat roots, and in the
city the poor devour the refuse from the houses of the rich. It was we
who paid for their luxuries, and with mine own eyes I have seen their
gilded coaches ride down weak men and women in the streets. But it
cannot last. They will murder Louis and burn the great chateaux. I, who
speak to you, am of the people, Monsieur, I know it."

The sun had long set, and with flint and tow they were touching the flame
to the candles, which flickered transparent yellow in the deepening
twilight. So absorbed had I become in listening to Lenoir's description
that I had forgotten Nick. Now I searched for him among the promenading
figures, and missed him. In vain did I seek for a glimpse of Suzanne's
red ribbons, and I grew less and less attentive to the miller's
reminiscences and arraignments of the nobility. Had Nick indeed run away