flashed fire.

"No, my child, they spoke only the best things One laughed a little at
times and kept saying 'Beware!' but the other--I prayed the Virgin to
bless him, he spoke such kind and noble words. Such gentle pity; such a
holy heart! 'May God defend her,' he said, _cherie_; he said, 'May God
defend her, for I see no help for her.' The other one laughed and left
him. He stopped in the door right across the street. Ah, my child, do
you blush? Is that something to bring the rose to your cheek? Many fine
gentlemen at the ball ask me often, 'How is your daughter, Madame
John?'".

The daughter's face was thrown into the mother's lap, not so well
satisfied, now, with God's handiwork. Ah, how she wept! Sob, sob, sob;
gasps and sighs and stifled ejaculations, her small right hand clinched
and beating on her mother's knee; and the mother weeping over her.

Kristian Koppig shut his window. Nothing but a generous heart and a
Dutchman's phlegm could have done so at that moment. And even thou,
Kristian Koppig!--for the window closed very slowly.

He wrote to his mother, thus:

"In this wicked city, I see none so fair as the poor girl who lives
opposite me, and who, alas! though so fair, is one of those whom the
taint of caste has cursed. She lives a lonely, innocent life in the
midst of corruption, like the lilies I find here in the marshew, and I
have great pity for her. 'God defend her,' I said to-night to a fellow
clerk, 'I see no help for her.' I know there is a natural, and I think
proper, horror of mixed blood (excuse the mention, sweet mother), and I
feel it, too; and yet if she were in Holland today, not one of a hundred
suitors would detect the hidden blemish."

In such strain this young man wrote on trying to demonstrate the utter
impossibility of his ever loving the lovable unfortunate, until the
midnight tolling of the cathedral clock sent him to bed.

About the same hour Zalli and 'Tite Poulette were kissing good-night.

"'Tite Poulette, I want you to promise me one thing."

"Well, Maman?"

"If any gentleman should ever love you and ask you to marry,--not
knowing, you know,--promise me you will not tell him you are not white."

"It can never be," said 'Tite Poulette.

"But if it should," said Madame John pleadingly.

"And break the law?" asked 'Tite Poulette, impatiently.

"But the law is unjust," said the mother.

"But it is the law!"

"But you will not, dearie, will you?"

"I would surely tel