sense of being outside of it all, and the fault,
try as she would, her own.

This feeling was strongest that Sunday afternoon when the gaiety and
badinage seemed to centre about a new arrival, a handsome,
silver-aureoled Catholic priest, confessor to half the parish. Genial,
polished, and affable, his very charm seemed to the Calvinistic-bred
Harriet to invest him the more with the seductions of Romanism, as
she had been taught to regard them.

There were music, cards, a huge bowl frosted with the icy beverage
within, and to the stunned young Puritan the genial little priest in
the midst seemed smiling a bacchanalian benediction over all.

Suddenly, above chatter and music Molly's voice arose, gay but
insistent, Molly there in the big chair, pale and big-eyed, her
strength so slow to return, herself a child in her little muslin
dress.

"Baby is four weeks old," Molly was declaring, "and here is Father
Bonot from service at Cannes Brulee and so with his vestments. I'm
here and Harriet's here, and mamma's here, and everybody else is a
cousin or something. I'm sure I don't know when I can get to church.
P'tite shall be baptized here, now."

And before the slower comprehension of the dazed Harriet had grasped
the meaning of the ensuing preparations--the draping of the
pier-table, the lighting of waxen candles--a sudden silence had
fallen; the gay abandon of these mercurial Southerners had given place
to reverent awe, even to tears, as the new-born representative of the
Puritan Blairs was brought in, in robes like cascades of lace, while
of all that followed, the one thing seeming to reach the comprehension
of Harriet was the chanting monotone of Father Bonot saying above the
child, "Mary Alexina--"

Later Molly and Harriet went back to New Orleans, to find Alexander
there but his father gone up to Vicksburg. Molly was to keep Harriet
with her until his return.

Only the girl knew what it meant to find herself near her brother. It
was as if here was something sane, rational, stable, by which to
re-establish poise and standards. Harriet would have trembled to
oppose her brother, so that to see Molly and Alexander together was a
revelation. His sternness and his displeasure alike broke as a wave
upon Molly, and as a wave receded, leaving her, as a wave would leave
the sand, pretty and sparkling and smiling. Other things were
revelations to Harriet, too.

Going down to breakfast one morning, she found her brother
c