and for some reason or other, the audience applauded with
more warmth than usual. There was a noticeable number of
good-humoured, benignant smiles on the faces of the applauders.

"No," answered Annette, breathlessly,--"no, indeed, Lola; I am going to
Paris next week. I am so delighted I can't stop to think."

"Yes, that is excellent," said Lola, "but all New Orleans is smiling at
the romance. Monsieur LeConte and Madame Dubeau were quietly married
last night, but it leaked out this afternoon. See all the applause
she's receiving!"

Annette leaned back in her chair, very white and still. Her box was
empty after the first act, and a quiet little tired voice that was
almost too faint to be heard in the carriage on the way home, said--

"Papa, I don't think I care to go to Paris, after all."

M'SIEU FORTIER'S VIOLIN

Slowly, one by one, the lights in the French Opera go out, until there
is but a single glimmer of pale yellow flickering in the great dark
space, a few moments ago all a-glitter with jewels and the radiance of
womanhood and a-clash with music. Darkness now, and silence, and a
great haunted hush over all, save for the distant cheery voice of a
stage hand humming a bar of the opera.

The glimmer of gas makes a halo about the bowed white head of a little
old man putting his violin carefully away in its case with aged,
trembling, nervous fingers. Old M'sieu Fortier was the last one out
every night.

Outside the air was murky, foggy. Gas and electricity were but faint
splotches of light on the thick curtain of fog and mist. Around the
opera was a mighty bustle of carriages and drivers and footmen, with a
car gaining headway in the street now and then, a howling of names and
numbers, the laughter and small talk of cloaked society stepping slowly
to its carriages, and the more bourgeoisie vocalisation of the foot
passengers who streamed along and hummed little bits of music. The
fog's denseness was confusing, too, and at one moment it seemed that
the little narrow street would become inextricably choked and remain so
until some mighty engine would blow the crowd into atoms. It had been
a crowded night. From around Toulouse Street, where led the entrance
to the troisiemes, from the grand stairway, from the entrance to the
quatriemes, the human stream poured into the street, nearly all with a
song on their lips.

M'sieu Fortier stood at the corner, blinking at the beautiful ladies in
their c