to his side, and as they by-and-by passed its farther limits she
began to be conscious that she was clinging to her protector as though
she would climb up and hide under his elbow. As they turned up the rue
Chartres she broke the silence.

"Oh!-h!"--breathlessly,--"'h!--M'sieur Frowenf'--you walkin' so faz!"

"Oh!" echoed Frowenfeld, "I did not know what I was doing."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the lady, "me, too, juz de sem lag you!
_attendez_; wait."

They halted; a moment's deft manipulation of a veil turned it into a
wrapping for her neck.

"'Sieur Frowenfel', oo dad man was? You know 'im?"

She returned her hand to Frowenfeld's arm and they moved on.

"The one who spoke to you, or--you know the one who got near enough to
apologize is not the one whose horse struck you!"

"I din know. But oo dad odder one? I saw h-only 'is back, bud I thing it
is de sem--"

She identified it with the back that was turned to her during her last
visit to Frowenfeld's shop; but finding herself about to mention a
matter so nearly connected with the purse of gold, she checked herself;
but Frowenfeld, eager to say a good word for his acquaintance, ventured
to extol his character while he concealed his name.

"While I have never been introduced to him, I have some acquaintance
with him, and esteem him a noble gentleman."

"W'ere you meet him?"

"I met him first," he said, "at the graves of my parents and sisters."

There was a kind of hush after the mention, and the lady made no reply.

"It was some weeks after my loss," resumed Frowenfeld.

"In wad _cimetiere_ dad was?"

"In no cemetery--being Protestants, you know--"

"Ah, yes, sir?" with a gentle sigh.

"The physician who attended me procured permission to bury them on some
private land below the city."

"Not in de groun'[2]?"

[Footnote 2: Only Jews and paupers are buried in the ground in New
Orleans.]

"Yes; that was my father's expressed wish when he died."

"You 'ad de fivver? Oo nurse you w'en you was sick?"

"An old hired negress."

"Dad was all?"

"Yes."

"Hm-m-m!" she said piteously, and laughed in her sleeve.

Who could hope to catch and reproduce the continuous lively thrill which
traversed the frame of the escaped book-worm as every moment there was
repeated to his consciousness the knowledge that he was walking across
the vault of heaven with the evening star on his arm--at least, that he
was, at her instigation, killing time along the dim, il