very. He too, clothed her with the qualities of
statesmanship.

"Ha, Monsieur," he said, "if that lady had been King of France, do you
think there would have been any States General, any red bonnets, any
Jacobins or Cordeliers? Parbleu, she would have swept the vicemongers
and traitors out of the Palais Royal itself. There would have been a
house-cleaning there. I, who speak to you, know it."

Every day Nick wrote a bulletin to be sent to the Vicomtesse, and he took
a fiendish delight in the composition of these. He would come out on the
gallery with ink and a blank sheet of paper and try to enlist my help.
He would insert the most ridiculous statements, as for instance, "Davy is
worse to-day, having bribed Lindy to give him a pint of Madeira against
my orders." Or, "Davy feigns to be sinking rapidly because he wishes to
have you back." Indeed, I was always in a torture of doubt to know what
the rascal had sent.

His company was most agreeable when he was recounting the many adventures
he had had during the five years after he had left New Orleans and been
lost to me. These would fill a book, and a most readable book it would
be if written in his own speech. His love for the excitement of the
frontier had finally drawn him back to the Cumberland country near
Nashville, and he had actually gone so far as to raise a house and till
some of the land which he had won from Darnley. It was perhaps
characteristic of him that he had named the place "Rattle-and-Snap" in
honor of the game which had put him in possession of it, and
"Rattle-and-Snap" it remains to this day. He was going back there with
Antoinette, so he said, to build a brick mansion and to live a
respectable life the rest of his days.

There was one question which had been in my mind to ask him, concerning
the attitude of Monsieur de St. Gre. That gentleman, with Madame, had
hurried back from Pointe Coupee at a message from the Vicomtesse, and had
gone first to Les Iles to see Antoinette. Then he had come, in spite of
the fever, to his own house in New Orleans to see Nick himself. What
their talk had been I never knew, for the subject was too painful to be
dwelt upon, and the conversation had been marked by frankness on both
sides. Monsieur de St. Gre was a just man, his love for his daughter was
his chief passion, and despite all that had happened he liked Nick. I
believe he could not wholly blame the younger man, and he forgave him.

Mrs. Temple, poor lady,