g, while they stood looking off to where water, sky, and sun
met; and presently, to his immeasurable relief, she responded:

"_Grandpere_ was not at that time such a very young man, yet he still
lived with his father. So when _grand'mere_ and her two friends--with
Sidney and Mingo--returned from the privateer to the hotel they were
opposite neighbors to the Chapdelaines and almost without another
friend, in a city--among a people--on fire with war. Then, pretty
soon--" the fair narrator stopped and significantly smiled.

Chester twinkled. "Um-h'm," he said, "your _grandpere's_ heart became
another city on fire."

"Yes, and 'twas in that old hotel--with the war storm coming, like
to-day only everything much more close and terrible, business dead,
soldiers every day going to Virginia--you must make Mr. Thorndyke-Smith
tell you about that--'twas in that old hotel, at a great free-gift
lottery and bazaar, lasting a week, for aid of soldiers' families, and
in a balcony of the grand salon, that _grandpere_--" the narrator
ceased and smiled again.

"Proposed," Chester murmured.

The girl nodded. They sank to a bench, the world behind them, the
stars above. "_Grand'mere_, she couldn't say yes till he'd first go to
her home, almost at the Canadian line, and ask her family. She, she
couldn't go; she couldn't leave Sidney and Mingo and neither could she
take them. So by railroad at last he got there. But her family took
so long to consent that he got back only the next year and through the
fall of the city. Only by ship could he come, and not till he had
begged President Lincoln himself and promised him to work with his
might to return Louisiana to the Union. Well, of course, he and his
father had voted against secession, weeping; yet now this was a pledge
terrible to keep, and the more because, you see? what to do, and when
and how to do it----"

"Were left to his own judgment and tact?"

"Oh, and honor! But anyhow he came. Doubtless, bringing the written
permission of the family, he was happy. Yet to what bitternesses--can
we say bitternesses in English?"

"Indeed we can," said Chester.

"To what bitternesses _grandpere_ had to return!"

"Aline!" Mme. De l'Isle called; "a table!"

"Yes, madame. Tell me--you, Mr. Chester--to your vision, how all that
must have been."

"Paint in your sketch? Let me try. Maybe only because you tell the
story, but maybe rather because it's so easy to see in you a
rei