he other, which proclaimed them--he incautiously
assumed--sisters. This time, as we see, the smaller, and probably elder,
came alone.

She still held in her hand the small silver which Frowenfeld had given
her in change, and sighed after the laugh they had just enjoyed together
over a slip in her English. A very grateful sip of sweet the laugh was
to the all but friendless apothecary, and the embarrassment that rushed
in after it may have arisen in part from a conscious casting about in
his mind for something--anything--that might prolong her stay an
instant. He opened his lips to speak; but she was quicker than he, and
said, in a stealthy way that seemed oddly unnecessary:

"You 'ave some basilic?"

She accompanied her words with a little peeping movement, directing his
attention, through the open door, to his box of basil, on the floor in
the rear room.

Frowenfeld stepped back to it, cut half the bunch and returned, with the
bold intention of making her a present of it; but as he hastened back to
the spot he had left, he was astonished to see the lady disappearing
from his farthest front door, followed by her negress.

"Did she change her mind, or did she misunderstand me?" he asked
himself; and, in the hope that she might return for the basil, he put it
in water in his back room.

The day being, as the figures have already shown, an unusually mild one,
even for a Louisiana December, and the finger of the clock drawing by
and by toward the last hour of sunlight, some half dozen of Frowenfeld's
townsmen had gathered, inside and out, some standing, some sitting,
about his front door, and all discussing the popular topics of the day.
For it might have been anticipated that, in a city where so very little
English was spoken and no newspaper published except that beneficiary
of eighty subscribers, the "Moniteur de la Louisiane," the apothecary's
shop in the rue Royale would be the rendezvous for a select company of
English-speaking gentlemen, with a smart majority of physicians.

The Cession had become an accomplished fact. With due drum-beatings and
act-reading, flag-raising, cannonading and galloping of aides-de-camp,
Nouvelle Orleans had become New Orleans, and Louisiane was Louisiana.
This afternoon, the first week of American jurisdiction was only
something over half gone, and the main topic of public debate was still
the Cession. Was it genuine? and, if so, would it stand?

"Mark my words," said one, "the B