you so?"

"I will tell you."

Then Miss Badeau told me the following legend, which I think worth
writing down. If it should appear tame to the reader, it will be because
I haven't a black ribbed-silk dress, and a strip of point-lace around my
throat, like Miss Badeau; it will be because I haven't her eyes and lips
and music to tell it with, confound me!

II.

THE LEGEND.

Near the _levee_ (quay) and not far from the old French Cathedral, in
New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, some thirty feet high, growing out
in the open air as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from their
native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Second Visit to the United
States," mentions this exotic:--"The tree is seventy or eighty years
old; for Pere Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty
years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was
young. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of
ground should forfeit it, if they cut down the palm."

Wishing to learn something of Pere Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyell
made inquiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants of the _faubourg_.
That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, that
he walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradually dried
up, and finally blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's
investigations.

This is all that is generally known of Pere Antoine. Miss Badeau's story
clothes these bare facts.

When Pere Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as
he loved his eyes. Emile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on
account of their friendship, became the marvel of the city where they
dwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked,
ate, and slept together.

Antoine and Emile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they had
taken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed
the color of their lives.

A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the Pacific, had a few
months before moved into their neighborhood. The lady died suddenly,
leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless and
unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the woman during her
illness, and at her death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of
Anglice, the daughter, swore between themselves to love and watch over
her as if she were their sister.

Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty, that made other women se