ed alive except their blackened eyes, fixed on the
horses' heads. As they passed, people turned to look. Every eye followed
them, as if drawn by the wind caused by their rapid motion.

Sidonie resembled those creatures. She might herself have driven Georges'
carriage; for Frantz was in Georges' carriage. He had drunk Georges'
wine. All the luxurious enjoyment of that family party came from Georges.

It was shameful, revolting! He would have liked to shout the whole story
to his brother. Indeed, it was his duty, as he had come there for that
express purpose. But he no longer felt the courage to do it. Ah! the
unhappy judge!

That evening after dinner, in the salon open to the fresh breeze from the
river, Risler begged his wife to sing. He wished her to exhibit all her
newly acquired accomplishments to Frantz.

Sidonie, leaning on the piano, objected with a melancholy air, while
Madame Dobson ran her fingers over the keys, shaking her long curls.

"But I don't know anything. What do you wish me to sing?"

She ended, however, by being persuaded. Pale, disenchanted, with her mind
upon other things, in the flickering light of the candles which seemed to
be burning incense, the air was so heavy with the odor of the hyacinths
and lilacs in the garden, she began a Creole ballad very popular in
Louisiana, which Madame Dobson herself had arranged for the voice and
piano:

"Pauv' pitit Mam'zelle Zizi,
C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne la tete a li."

["Poor little Mam'zelle Zizi,
'Tis love, 'tis love that turns her head."]

And as she told the story of the ill-fated little Zizi, who was driven
mad by passion, Sidonie had the appearance of a love-sick woman. With
what heartrending expression, with the cry of a wounded dove, did she
repeat that refrain, so melancholy and so sweet, in the childlike patois
of the colonies:

"C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne la tete...."

It was enough to drive the unlucky judge mad as well.

But no! The siren had been unfortunate in her choice of a ballad. For, at
the mere name of Mam'zelle Zizi, Frantz was suddenly transported to a
gloomy chamber in the Marais, a long way from Sidonie's salon, and his
compassionate heart evoked the image of little Desiree Delobelle, who had
loved him so long. Until she was fifteen, she never had been called
anything but Ziree or Zizi, and she was the pauv' pitit of the Creole
ballad to the life, the ever-neglected, ever-