pected."

"Yes, _in spite_ of that. Their friends said: 'Let the extremists be
extreme that way.'"

"The public mind was not yet quite in flames."

"No. But--guess who helped _grandpere_ do that."

"Why, do I know him? Castanado."

The girl shook her head.

"Who? Beloiseau?"

"Ah, you! You can guess better."

"Ovide Lan'--no, Ovide was still a slave."

"Yet more free than most free negroes. 'Twas he. He was janitor to
offices in the hotel, and always making acquaintance with the slaves of
the slave-mart. And when he found one who was quite of the right
kind--and Ovide he's a wise judge of men, you know--he would show him
to _grandpere_, and at the auction, if the bidding was low, _grandpere_
would buy him--or her."

"What was one of 'quite the right kind'? One willing to buy his own
freedom?"

"Ah, also to do something more; you see?"

"Yes, I see," Chester laughed; "to help others run away, wasn't it?"

"Not precisely to run, but----"

"To stow away, on those ships, h'm?" There was rapture in crossing that
_h'm_ line of intimacy. "I see it all! Ha-ha, I see it all! Well!
that brings us back to 'Maud,' doesn't it--h'm?"

"Yes. They met, she and grandpere, at a ball, in the hotel.
But"--Aline smiled--"that was not their first. Their first was two or
three mornings before, when he, passing in Royal Street, and she--with
Sidney--looking at old buildings in Conti Street----"

"Mademoiselle! That happened to _them_?--_there_?"

"Yes, to _them_, _there_." With level gaze narrator and listener
regarded each other. Then they glanced at Cupid. His eyes were
shining on them.

"Who is our young friend, anyhow?" asked Chester.

"Ah, I suppose you have guessed. He is the grandson of Sidney."

XXI

"And another time, on the morning just before the ball," said Aline,
returning to the story, "they had seen each other again. That was at
the slave-auction. That night, before the ball was over, she and
_grandpere_ understood--knew, each, from the other, why the other was
at that auction; and he had promised her to find Mingo.

"Well, after weeks, Ovide helping, all at once there was Mingo, in the
gang, by the block, waiting his turn to go on it. Picture that! Any
time I want to shut my eyes I can see it, and I think you can do the
same, h'm?"

Blessed _h'm_; 'twas the flower--of the Chapdelaines--humming back to
the bee. Said the bee, "We'll try it there together some day, h'm?"