ks closed with new plaster, no doubt by the jealous hand of
'Sieur George himself Kookoo's eyes swept sharply round the two
apartments. The furniture was all there. Moreover, there was Monsieur's
little hair-trunk. He should not soon forget that trunk. One day,
fifteen years or more before, he had taken hold of that trunk to assist
Monsieur to arrange his apartment, and Monsieur had drawn his fist back
and cried to him to "drop it!" _Mais!_ there it was, looking very
suspicious in Kookoo's eyes, and the lady's domestic, as tidy as a
yellow-bird, went and sat on it. Could that trunk contain treasure? It
might, for Madame wanted to shut the door, and, in fact, did so.

The lady was quite handsome--had been more so, but was still
young--spoke the beautiful language, and kept, in the inner room, her
discreet and taciturn mulattress, a tall, straight woman, with a fierce
eye, but called by the young Creoles of the neighborhood "confound' good
lookin'."

Among _les Americaines_, where the new neighbor always expects to be
called upon by the older residents, this lady might have made friends in
spite of being as reserved as 'Sieur George; but the reverse being the
Creole custom, and she being well pleased to keep her own company, chose
mystery rather than society.

The poor landlord was sorely troubled; it must not that any thing _de
trop_ take place in his house. He watched the two rooms narrowly, but
without result, save to find that Madame plied her needle for pay, spent
her money for little else besides harpstrings, and took good care of the
little trunk of Monsieur. This espionage was a good turn to the mistress
and maid, for when Kookoo announced that all was proper, no more was
said by outsiders. Their landlord never got but one question answered by
the middle-aged maid:

"Madame, he feared, was a litt' bit embarrass' _pour_ money, eh?"

"_Non_; Mademoiselle [Mademoiselle, you notice!] had some property, but
did not want to eat it up."

Sometimes lady-friends came, in very elegant private carriages, to see
her, and one or two seemed to beg her--but in vain--to go away with
them; but these gradually dropped off, until lady and servant were alone
in the world. And so years, and the Mexican war, went by.

The volunteers came home; peace reigned, and the city went on spreading
up and down the land; but 'Sieur George did not return. It overran the
country like cocoa-grass. Fields, roads, woodlands, that were once
'Si