ccasionally to talk patois with Robert, whom she had known as
a boy.

He went out to a neighboring cigar stand to purchase cigarette papers,
and when he came back he found that Celestine had served the black
coffee in the parlor.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have come back," he said. "When you are tired of
me, tell me to go."

"You never tire me. You must have forgotten the hours and hours at
Grand Isle in which we grew accustomed to each other and used to being
together."

"I have forgotten nothing at Grand Isle," he said, not looking at her,
but rolling a cigarette. His tobacco pouch, which he laid upon the
table, was a fantastic embroidered silk affair, evidently the handiwork
of a woman.

"You used to carry your tobacco in a rubber pouch," said Edna, picking
up the pouch and examining the needlework.

"Yes; it was lost."

"Where did you buy this one? In Mexico?"

"It was given to me by a Vera Cruz girl; they are very generous," he
replied, striking a match and lighting his cigarette.

"They are very handsome, I suppose, those Mexican women; very
picturesque, with their black eyes and their lace scarfs."

"Some are; others are hideous, just as you find women everywhere."

"What was she like--the one who gave you the pouch? You must have known
her very well."

"She was very ordinary. She wasn't of the slightest importance. I knew
her well enough."

"Did you visit at her house? Was it interesting? I should like to know
and hear about the people you met, and the impressions they made on
you."

"There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the
imprint of an oar upon the water."

"Was she such a one?"

"It would be ungenerous for me to admit that she was of that order and
kind." He thrust the pouch back in his pocket, as if to put away the
subject with the trifle which had brought it up.

Arobin dropped in with a message from Mrs. Merriman, to say that
the card party was postponed on account of the illness of one of her
children.

"How do you do, Arobin?" said Robert, rising from the obscurity.

"Oh! Lebrun. To be sure! I heard yesterday you were back. How did they
treat you down in Mexique?"

"Fairly well."

"But not well enough to keep you there. Stunning girls, though, in
Mexico. I thought I should never get away from Vera Cruz when I was down
there a couple of years ago."

"Did they embroider slippers and tobacco pouches and hat-bands and
things for you?" asked Edna.

"Oh! m