offry's desk."

"Well, madame, Marais Street, here's the place. Ah! and street-car--or
jitney--passing thiz corner will take you ag-ain at yo' hotel."

XLVI

Satisfied with her son's quarters, Mrs. Chester returned to her hotel
and had just dined when her telephone rang.

"Mme.--oh, Mme. De l'Isle, I'm so please'----"

The instrument reciprocated the pleasure. "If Mrs. Chezter was not too
fat-igue' by travelling, monsieur and madame would like to call."

Soon they appeared and in a moment whose brevity did honor to both
sides had established cordial terms. Rising to go, the pair asked a
great favor. It made them, they said, "very 'appy to perceive that Mr.
Chezter, by writing, has make his mother well acquaint' with that li'l'
coterie in Royal Street, in which they, sometime', 'ave the honor to be
include'." "The honor" meant the modest condescension, and when Mrs.
Chester's charming smile recognized the fact the pair took fresh
delight in her. "An' that li'l' coterie, sinze hearing that from
Beloiseau juz' this evening, are anxiouz to see you at ones; they are,
like ourselve', so fon' of yo' son; and they cannot call all
together--my faith, that would be a procession! And bi-side', Mme.
Castanado she--well--you understan' why that is--she never go' h-out.
Same time M. Castanado he's down-stair' waiting----

"Shall I go around there with you? I'll be glad to go." They went.

Through that "recommend'" of Chester, got by Thorndyke-Smith for the
law firm, and by him shown to M. De l'Isle, the coterie knew that the
pretty lady whom they welcomed in Castanado's little parlor was of a
family line from which had come three State governors, one of whom had
been also his State's chief justice. One of her pleasantest
impressions as she made herself at ease among them, and they around her
and Mme. Castanado, was that they regarded this fact as honoring all
while flattering none. She found herself as much, and as kindly, on
trial before them as they before her, and saw that behind all their
lively conversation on such comparatively light topics as the World
War, greater New Orleans, and the decay of the times, the main question
was not who, but what, she was. As for them, they proved at least
equal to the best her son had ever written of them.

And they found her a confirmation of the best they had ever discerned
in her son. In her fair face they saw both his masculine beauty and
the excellence of his m