Already his generous
interest had explored her pecuniary affairs, and his suggestions,
too good to be ignored, had moulded them into better shape, and
enlarged their net results. And he could tell how many eight-ounce
tacks make a pound, and what electricity is, and could cure a wart
in ten minutes, and recite "Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be
proud?" And this evening, the seventh since the storm, when for one
weak moment she had allowed the conversation to drift toward
wedlock, he had stated a woman's chances of marrying between the
ages of fifteen and twenty, to wit, 14-1/2 per cent; and between thirty
and thirty-five, 15-1/2.

"Hah!" exclaimed Zosephine, her eyes flashing as they had not done in
many a day, "'tis not dat way!--not in Opelousas!"

"Arithmetically speaking!" the statistician quickly explained. He
ventured to lay a forefinger on the back of her hand, but one glance
of her eye removed it. "You see, that's merely arithmetically
considered. Now, of course, looking at it geographically--why, of
course! And--why, as to that, there are ladies"--

Madame Beausoleil rose, left Mr. Tarbox holding the yarn, and went
down the hall, whose outer door had opened and shut. A moment later
she entered the room again.

"Claude!"

Marguerite's heart sank. Her guess was right: the chief engineer had
come. And early in the morning Claude was gone.

CHAPTER V.

FATHER AND SON.

Such strange things storms do,--here purifying the air, yonder
treading down rich harvests, now replenishing the streams, and now
strewing shores with wrecks; here a blessing, there a calamity. See
what this one had done for Marguerite! Well, what? She could not
lament; she dared not rejoice. Oh! if she were Claude and Claude were
she, how quickly--

She wondered how many miles a day she could learn to walk if she
should start out into the world on foot to find somebody, as she had
heard that Bonaventure had once done to find her mother's lover. There
are no Bonaventures now, she thinks, in these decayed times.

"Mamma,"--her speech was French,--"why do we never see Bonaventure?
How far is it to Grande Pointe?"

"Ah! my child, a hundred miles; even more."

"And to my uncle Rosamond's,--Rosamond Robichaux, on Bayou
Terrebonne?"

"Fully as far, and almost the same journey."

There was but one thing to be done,--crush Claude out of her heart.

The storm had left no wounds on Grande Pointe. Every roof was safe,
even th