iselle," said he, "I did not for a moment think it could have
been a love match."

Mademoiselle turned away and laughed.

"You are the very strangest man I have ever seen," she said.

"Shall I give you my notion of a love match, Mademoiselle?" said Nick.

"I should think you might be well versed in the subject, Monsieur,"
she answered, speaking to the tree, "but here is scarcely the time and
place." She wound up her sewing, and faced him. "I must really leave
you," she said.

He took a step towards her and stood looking down into her face. Her
eyes dropped.

"And am I never to see you again?" he asked.

"Monsieur!" she cried softly, "I do not know who you are." She made him
a courtesy, took a few steps in the opposite path, and turned. "That
depends upon your ingenuity," she added; "you seem to have no lack of
it, Monsieur."

Nick was transported.

"You must not go," he cried.

"Must not? How dare you speak to me thus, Monsieur?" Then she tempered
it. "There is a lady here whom I love, and who is ill. I must not be
long from her bedside."

"She is very ill?" said Nick, probably for want of something better.

"She is not really ill, Monsieur, but depressed--is not that the
word? She is a very dear friend, and she has had trouble--so much,
Monsieur,--and my mother brought her here. We love her as one of the
family."

This was certainly ingenuous, and it was plain that the girl gave us
this story through a certain nervousness, for she twisted her sewing in
her fingers as she spoke.

"Mademoiselle," said Nick, "I would not keep you from such an errand of
mercy."

She gave him a grateful look, more dangerous than any which had gone
before.

"And besides," he went on, "we have come to stay awhile with you, Mr.
Ritchie and myself."

"You have come to stay awhile?" she said.

I thought it time that the farce were ended.

"We have come with letters to your father, Monsieur de Saint-Gre,
Mademoiselle," I said, "and I should like very much to see him, if he is
at leisure."

Mademoiselle stared at me in unfeigned astonishment.

"But did you not meet him, Monsieur?" she demanded. "He left an hour ago
for New Orleans. You must have met a gentleman riding very fast."

It was my turn to be astonished.

"But that was not your father!" I exclaimed.

"Et pourquoi non?" she said.

"Is not your father the stout gentleman whom I saw with you on the levee
last evening?" I asked.

She laughed.

"You have