say no color of
shell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which took its
place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.

This side doorway which led from Madame Delphine's house into her garden
was over-arched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice, and
partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned a
rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when the
twilights were balmy or the moon was bright.

"_Cherie_," said Madame Delphine on one of those evenings, "why do you
dream so much?"

She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughter
had easily learned.

The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped her
glance to the hands in her own lap; which were listlessly handling the
end of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Her
dress was white again; this was but one night since that in which
Monsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He had
not been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leaving
it as he had found it.

Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in the
moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste
drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was
again laying aside to re-assume the medaeval bondage of the staylace;
for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine
and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,
of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her
hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle
admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.

Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, and
on that account repeated her question:

"What are you thinking about?"

The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,
bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.

The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the silence which followed, a
daughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, and
Olive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:

"I was thinking of Pere Jerome's sermon."

Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the day
it was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever
afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of
secondary value to