nce black, now lifted up into a glistening
snow-drift, augments the majesty of a still beautiful face, while her
full stature and stately bearing suggest the finer parts of Agricola,
her brother. It is Madame Grandissime, the mother of Honore.

One who sits at her left, and is very small, is a favorite cousin. On
her right is her daughter, the widowed senora of Jose Martinez; she has
wonderful black hair and a white brow as wonderful. The commanding
carriage of the mother is tempered in her to a gentle dignity and calm,
contrasting pointedly with the animated manners of the courtly matrons
among whom she sits, and whose continuous conversation takes this
direction or that, at the pleasure of Madame Grandissime.

But if you can command your powers of attention, despite those children
who are shouting Creole French and sliding down the rails of the front
stair, turn the eye to the laughing squadron of beautiful girls, which
every few minutes, at an end of the veranda, appears, wheels and
disappears, and you note, as it were by flashes, the characteristics of
face and figure that mark the Louisianaises in the perfection of the
new-blown flower. You see that blondes are not impossible; there,
indeed, are two sisters who might be undistinguishable twins but that
one has blue eyes and golden hair. You note the exquisite pencilling of
their eyebrows, here and there some heavier and more velvety, where a
less vivacious expression betrays a share of Spanish blood. As
Grandissimes, you mark their tendency to exceed the medium Creole
stature, an appearance heightened by the fashion of their robes. There
is scarcely a rose in all their cheeks, and a full red-ripeness of the
lips would hardly be in keeping; but there is plenty of life in their
eyes, which glance out between the curtains of their long lashes with a
merry dancing that keeps time to the prattle of tongues. You are not
able to get a straight look into them, and if you could you would see
only your own image cast back in pitiful miniature; but you turn away
and feel, as you fortify yourself with an inward smile, that they know
you, you man, through and through, like a little song. And in turning,
your sight is glad to rest again on the face of Honore's mother. You
see, this time, that she _is_ his mother, by a charm you had overlooked,
a candid, serene and lovable smile. It is the wonder of those who see
that smile that she can ever be harsh.

The playful, mock-martial