ther and two sisters,
who, with a few acres of sugar-cane and some old faithful servants,
managed to make both ends meet, and to support the establishment in a
certain air of elegance and comfort to which they had been accustomed.
They were of a proud and haughty race--the brother a disdainful and
imperious gentleman, smarting and brooding over the reverses of his
family, and rarely visiting his neighbors. His sisters--and they were
twins--were trustful, happy girls, and Josephine had been my childish
love."

Here Cleveland bent over his saddle-bow, and if the quiet old horse he
bestrode believed the large drops which fell upon his sleek neck came
from the clouds, or the drooping foliage of the forest, that animal was
never more deceived in his quadruped life. We know that fact, for it
stands upon the angelic record.

"Well, my dear Piron, as we entered the little saloon where Fifine was
seated at the piano, playing the sweet airs she had sung to me when a
little bit of a girl, and her beautiful sister bending over a table
near, absorbed in a book, while the candles under the glass shades
lighted up her dark passionate eyes and brunette complexion, Paul
approached her. It was not love at first sight, because they had played
together when children; but it was such a love as only begins and dies
with man or woman. The brother came in soon afterward, but there was no
love exchanged between him and Paul, and they met in a manner which
seemed to revive the early dislike they had entertained one toward the
other in boyhood.

"So the time passed, and in the course of a few months Josephine and I
were married, and our home was made on my own old place. Still, night by
night, in storm, calm, or freshet, Paul pulled himself in a skiff across
that mighty river, and we could see the lights shining to a late hour in
the little bower. He had changed a great deal, for he loved with the
whole force of his fiery and impetuous nature. Pauline loved too, though
still she feared him. The brother, however, bitterly opposed their
union, and stormy scenes arose. Josephine and I did all we could to put
matters on a happy footing, but Jacques, the brother, grew more
determined as his sister refused to cast off her lover, till at last his
feeling against him broke out into open scornful insult; and though Paul
still persisted in seeing Pauline, yet we feared that the impetuous
spirits of the two men would, at any moment, burst out into open