ecting, and mechanically looking around at
the divisions into nooks.

"Don't you think this arrangement inviting, Chamilly? It has a history.
An engagement has taken place in each of these alcoves except one."

I looked around at them again; then asked:

"Which is the one?"

"The alcove we are in, mon frere."

I glanced at her, the moonlight still falling brokenly-upon the Venus
head, and could see a crimson blush sweep over her countenance and her
eyelids droop.

"Grace," I said--agitatedly, "Will you give me more of your evening
after the next dance you promised?"

"Take from then to the end!--three dances that I have kept for you
especially; I wish they were longer. But I am ashamed to sit here after
what I have happened to say."

CHAPTER XI.

THE "CAVE."

A whirl of rapid thoughts made it some time till I could regain presence
of mind, and I found my eyes following her feverishly into the weavings
of another waltz, and was roused by the "Salut, Monsieur," of a quiet
man who did not know me, but turned out from his remarks, to be Picault,
the owner of the mansion. His observations were general and of a kind of
a conciliatory tone, and seemed to be each uttered after grave
deliberation. There was a prudence and respectability and an air of
inoffensiveness about his manner which indicated the quiet merchant of
means. He spoke of Madame De Rheims with great respect, and drew my
attention to quondam Mlle. Alvarez, the New Orleans beauty, as though
her presence was a marked honor to his house; and hearing that I was not
acquainted with her, he insisted on an introduction and I found myself
leading her into the alcove Grace and I had left. She spoke first of New
Orleans, where English, she said, was taking the place of our language,
and I gathered that the latter was becoming gradually confined to a
limited circle. There was a French quarter apart from the American city,
though in its midst.

"The fate of your people should make you intensely French," said I.

"Monsieur has an English descent, to judge by his name. Well then, I
will say something I say at home. I do not admire Frenchmen."

"But Mlle.--your patriotism!"

"I am not very French," she said haughtily, "My father is the son of a
Spanish Minister."

"But why do you disapprove of the French? As to me, I find them
excessively attractive."

"It is because I know them well," she said gaily. "My husband is the
only Frenchman I would have