hristian; as I would be a bad
mother if I loved you only from obligation."

"Brother Gabriel," interrupted Dolores, "why will you not taste my
potatoes?"

"It is a fast-day," replied Brother Gabriel.

"Nonsense! There is no longer convent, nor rules, nor fasts," cavalierly
said Manuel, to induce the poor old man to participate in the general
repast. "Besides, you have accomplished sixty years: put away these
scruples, and you will not be damned for having eaten our potatoes."

"Pardon me," replied Brother Gabriel, "but I ought to fast as formerly,
inasmuch as the Father Prior has not given me a dispensation."

"Well done, Brother Gabriel!" added Maria; "Manuel shall not be the
demon tempter with his rebellious spirit, to incite you to gormandize."

Upon this, the good old woman rose up and locked up in a closet the
plate which Dolores had served to the monk.

"I will keep it here for you until to-morrow morning, Brother Gabriel."

Supper finished, the men, whose habit was always to keep their hats on
in the house, uncovered, and Maria said grace.

GEORGE W. CABLE

(1844-)

Perhaps the first intimation given to the world of a literary and
artistic awakening in the Southern States of America after the Civil
War, was the appearance in Scribner's Magazine of a series of short
stories, written by an unknown and hitherto untried hand, and afterward
collected and republished in 'Old Creole Days.' This was long before the
vogue of the short story, and that the publication of these tales was
regarded as a literary event in those days is sufficient testimony to
their power.

[Illustration: GEORGE W. CABLE]

They were fresh, full of color and poetic feeling--romantic with the
romance that abounds in the life they portrayed, redolent of indigenous
perfumes,--magnolia, lemon, orange, and myrtle, mingled with French
exotics of the boudoir,--interpretive in these qualities, through a fine
perception, of a social condition resulting from the transplanting to a
semi-tropical soil of a conservative, wealthy, and aristocratic French
community. Herein lay much of their most inviting charm; but more than
this, they were racy with twinkling humor, tender with a melting pathos,
and intensely dramatic.

An intermixture of races with strong caste prejudices, and a time of
revolution and change, present eminently the condition and the moment
for the romance. And when added to this, he finds to his hand an almost
tropica