ow this. It was like life and death, so to
speak, for her not to let those men turn her out of here."

The teacher turned away, pondering.

The eviction did not, at that time, hold good. The political struggle went
on, fierce and bitter. The "Radical" government was doomed, but not dead.
A few weeks after the scene just described the evicted girls were
reinstated. A long term of suspense followed. The new year became the old
and went out. Twice this happened. In 1877 there were two governors and
two governments in Louisiana. In sight from the belvedere of the "haunted
house," eight squares away up Royal street, in the State House, the _de
facto_ government was shut up under close military siege by the _de jure_
government, and the Girls' High School in Madame Lalaurie's old house,
continuing faithfully their daily sessions, knew with as little certainty
to which of the two they belonged as though New Orleans had been some
Italian city of the fifteenth century. But to guess the White League, was
not far from right, and in April the Radical government expired.

A Democratic school-board came in. June brought Commencement day, and some
of the same girls who had been evicted in 1874 were graduated by the new
Board in 1877. During the summer the schools and school-laws were
overhauled, and in September or October the high school was removed to
another place, where each pupil suspected of mixed blood was examined
officially behind closed doors and only those who could prove white or
_Indian_ ancestry were allowed to stay. A "colored" high school was opened
in Madame Lalaurie's house with a few pupils. It lasted one session, maybe
two, and then perished.

In 1882 the "haunted house" had become a Conservatory of Music. Chamber
concerts were frequent in Madame Lalaurie's old dining-hall. On a certain
sweet evening in the spring of that year there sat among those who had
gathered to hear the haunted place filled with a deluge of sweet sounds
one who had been a teacher there when the house had been, as some
one--Conservative or Radical, who can tell which?--said on the spot, "for
the second time purged of its iniquities." The scene was "much changed,"
says the auditor; but the ghosts were all there, walking on the waves of
harmony. And thickest and fastest they trooped in and out when a
passionate song thrilled the air with the promise that

"Some day--some day
Eyes clearer grown the truth may see."

ATTALIE BROUIL