possible
to get away sooner. Get the other brush, child; there are wrinkles in
my head as well as my hair this evening; you must help me to smooth
them."

But the maid was not to be comforted by even that suggestion, though
she brushed the wavy, dusky mane with loving hands--one could not but
read tenderness in every touch she gave the shining tresses. But her
sighs were frequent for all that.

"Me of help?" she said, hopelessly. "I tell you true, Marquise, I am
no use to anybody, I'm that nervous. I was afraid of this journey all
the time. I told you so before you left Mobile; you only laughed at my
superstitious fears, and now, even before we reach the place, you see
what happened."

"I see," asserted the Marquise, smiling at her, teasingly, "but then
the reasons you gave were ridiculous, Louise; you had dreams, and a
coffin in a teacup. Come, come; it is not so bad as you fear, despite
the prophetic tea grounds; there is always a way out if you look for
paths; so we will look."

"It is all well for you, Marquise, to scoff at the omens; you are too
learned to believe in them; but it is in our blood, perhaps, and it's
no use us fighting against presentiments, for they're stronger than we
are. I had no heart to get ready for the journey--not a bit. We are
cut off from the world, and even suppose you could accomplish anything
here, it will be more difficult than in the cities, and the danger so
much greater."

"Then the excitement will provide an attraction, child, and the late
weeks have really been very dull."

The hair dressing ceased because the maid could not manipulate the
brush and express sufficient surprise at the same time.

"Heavens, Madame! What then would you call lively if this has been
dull? I'm patriotic enough--or revengeful enough, perhaps--for any
human sort of work; but you fairly frighten me sometimes the way you
dash into things, and laughing at it all the time as if it was only a
joke to you, just as you are doing this minute. You are harder than
iron in some things and yet you look so delicately lovely--so like a
beautiful flower--that every one loves you, and--"

"Every one? Oh, Louise, child, do you fancy, then, that you are the
whole world?"

The maid lifted the hand of the mistress and touched it to her cheek.

"I don't only love you, I worship you," she murmured. "You took me
when I was nothing, you trusted me, you taught me, you made a new
woman of me. I wouldn't ever mind sla