crowd had
already reached the place and was turning towards the iron gates.

The two women went quickly to the hall, and, looking down the spiral
staircase to the marble pavement of the entrance three stories below, saw
the men swarming in through the wide gateway and doorway by dozens. While
they still leaned over the balustrade, Marguerite, one of their pupils, a
blue-eyed blonde girl of lovely complexion, with red, voluptuous lips, and
beautiful hair held by a carven shell comb, came and bent over the
balustrade with them. Suddenly her comb slipped from its hold, flashed
downward, and striking the marble pavement flew into pieces at the feet of
the men who were about to ascend. Several of them looked quickly up.

"It was my mother's comb!" said Marguerite, turned ashy pale, and sunk
down in hysterics. The two teachers carried her to a remote room, the
bed-chamber of the janitress, and then obeyed an order of the principal
calling her associates to the second floor. A band of men were coming up
the winding stair with measured, military tread towards the landing, where
the principal, with her assistants gathered around her, stood to confront
them.

She was young, beautiful, and of calm temper. Her skin, says one who was
present, was of dazzling clearness, her abundant hair was golden auburn,
and in happy hours her eyes were as "soft as velvet." But when the leader
of the band of men reached the stair-landing, threw his coat open, and
showed the badge of the White League, her face had blanched and hardened
to marble, and her eyes darkened to black as they glowed with indignation.

"We have come," said the White Leaguer, "to remove the colored pupils. You
will call your school to order." To which the principal replied:

"You will permit me first to confer with my corps of associates." He was a
trifle disconcerted.

"Oh, certainly."

The teachers gathered in the principal's private room. Some were dumb, one
broke into tears, another pleaded devotion to the principal, and one was
just advising that the onus of all action be thrown upon the intruders,
when the door was pushed open and the White Leaguer said:

"Ladies, we are waiting. Assemble the school; we are going to clean it
out."

The pupils, many of them trembling, weeping, and terrified, were with
difficulty brought to order in the assembly room. This place had once been
Madame Lalaurie's dining-hall. A frieze of angels ran round its four
walls, and, oddly,