lifter's would be guilty of, a wide,
limp, morocco-bound subscription-book. "Here!" He throws it open upon
the broad Texas pommel. "Now, just for curiosity, look at it--oh! you
can't see it from away off there, looking at it sideways!" He gives
her a half-reproachful, half-beseeching smile and glance, and gathers
up his dropped bridle. They come closer. Their two near shoulders
approach each other, the two elbows touch, and two dissimilar hands
hold down the leaves. The two horses playfully bite at each other; it
is their way of winking one eye.

"Now, first, here's the governor's name; and then his son's, and his
nephew's, and his other son's, and his cousin's. And here's Pierre
Cormeaux, and Baptiste Clement, you know, at Carancro; and here's
Basilide Sexnailder, and Joseph Cantrelle, and Jacques Hebert; see?
And Gaudin, and Laprade, Blouin, and Roussel,--old Christofle Roussel
of Beau Bassin,--Duhon, Roman and Simonette Le Blanc, and Judge
Landry, and Theriot,--Colonel Theriot,--Martin, Hebert again,
Robichaux, Mouton, Mouton again, Robichaux again, Mouton--oh, I've got
'em all!--Castille, Beausoleil--cousin of yours? Yes, he said so; good
fellow, thinks you're the greatest woman alive." The two dissimilar
hands, in turning a leaf, touch, and the smaller one leaves the book.
"And here's Guilbeau, and Latiolais, and Thibodeaux, and Soudrie, and
Arcenaux--flowers of the community--'I gather them in,'--and here's a
page of Cote Gelee people, and--Joe Jefferson hadn't got back to the
Island yet, but I've got his son; see? And here's--can you make out
this signature? It's written so small"--

Both heads,--with only the heavens and the dear old earth-mother to
see them,--both heads bend over the book; the hand that had retreated
returns, but bethinks itself and withdraws again; the eyes of Mr.
Tarbox look across their corners at the sedate brow so much nearer his
than ever it has been before, until that brow feels the look, and
slowly draws away. Look to your mother, Marguerite; look to her! But
Marguerite is not there, not even in Vermilionville; nor yet in
Lafayette parish; nor anywhere throughout the wide prairies of
Opelousas or Attakapas. Triumph fills Mr. Tarbox's breast.

"Well," he says, restoring the book to its hiding-place, "seems like
I ought to be satisfied with that; doesn't it to you?"

It does; Zosephine says so. She sees the double meaning, and Mr.
Tarbox sees that she sees it, but must still move caut