and the maid led them
and the notary down stairs and let them out.

VI.

MEN CAN BE BETTER THAN THEIR LAWS.

An hour later, when the black maid returned from an errand, she found her
mistress at the head of the stairs near the Englishman's door, talking in
suppressed tones to Camille Ducour, who, hat in hand, seemed to have just
dropped in and to be just going out again. He went, and Attalie said to
her maid that he was "so good" and was going to come and sit up all night
with the sick man.

The next morning the maid--and the neighborhood--was startled to hear
that the cotton buyer had died in the night. The physician called and gave
a certificate of death without going up to the death chamber.

The funeral procession was short. There was first the carriage with the
priest and the acolytes; then the hearse; then a carriage in which sat the
cotton buyer's clerk,--he had had but one,--his broker, and two men of
that singular sort that make it a point to go to everybody's funeral; then
a carriage occupied by Attalie's other lodgers, and then, in a carriage
bringing up the rear, were Camille Ducour and Madame Brouillard. She alone
wept, and, for all we have seen, we yet need not doubt her tears were
genuine. Such was the cortege. Oh! also, in his private vehicle, driven
by himself, was a very comfortable and genteel-looking man, whom neither
Camille nor Attalie knew, but whom every other attendant at the funeral
seemed to regard with deference. While the tomb was being sealed Camille
sidled up to the broker and made bold to ask who the stranger was. Attalie
did not see the movement, and Camille did not tell her what the broker
said.

Late in the next afternoon but one Camille again received word from
Attalie to call and see her in all haste. He found her in the Englishman's
front room. Five white men were sitting there with her. They not only
looked amused, but plainly could have looked more so but for the
restraints of rank and station. Attalie was quite as visibly frightened.
Camille's knees weakened and a sickness came over him as he glanced around
the group. For in the midst sat the stranger who had been at the funeral,
while on his right sat two, and on his left two, men, the terror of whose
presence we shall understand in a moment.

"Mr. Ducour," said the one who had been at the funeral, "as friends of Mr.
[Englishman] we desire to express our satisfaction at the terms of his
last will and testament.