s
bridle and, with his elbow in the saddle, leaned his handsome head on
his equally beautiful hand. His whole appearance was a dazzling
contradiction of the notion that a Creole is a person of mixed blood.

"I think I can!" replied the convalescent, with much spirit, rising with
more haste than was good, and staggering a moment.

The horseman laughed outright.

"Your principle is the best, I cannot dispute that; but whether you can
act it out--reformers do not make money, you know." He examined his
saddle-girth and began to tighten it. "One can condemn--too
cautiously--by a kind of--elevated cowardice (I have that fault); but
one can also condemn too rashly; I remember when I did so. One of the
occupants of those two graves you see yonder side by side--I think might
have lived longer if I had not spoken so rashly for his rights. Did you
ever hear of Bras-Coupe, Mr. Frowenfeld?"

"I have heard only the name."

"Ah! Mr. Frowenfeld, _there_ was a bold man's chance to denounce wrong
and oppression! Why, that negro's death changed the whole channel of my
convictions."

The speaker had turned and thrown up his arm with frowning earnestness;
he dropped it and smiled at himself.

"Do not mistake me for one of your new-fashioned Philadelphia
'_negrophiles_'; I am a merchant, my-de'-seh, a good subject of His
Catholic Majesty, a Creole of the Creoles, and so forth, and so
forth. Come!"

He slapped the saddle.

To have seen and heard them a little later as they moved toward the
city, the Creole walking before the horse, and Frowenfeld sitting in the
saddle, you might have supposed them old acquaintances. Yet the
immigrant was wondering who his companion might be. He had not
introduced himself--seemed to think that even an immigrant might know
his name without asking. Was it Honore Grandissime? Joseph was tempted
to guess so; but the initials inscribed on the silver-mounted pommel of
the fine old Spanish saddle did not bear out that conjecture.

The stranger talked freely. The sun's rays seemed to set all the
sweetness in him a-working, and his pleasant worldly wisdom foamed up
and out like fermenting honey.

By and by the way led through a broad, grassy lane where the path turned
alternately to right and left among some wild acacias. The Creole waved
his hand toward one of them and said:

"Now, Mr. Frowenfeld, you see? one man walks where he sees another's
track; that is what makes a path; but you want a man, inste