ient mansion that the landlord's guess was not so bad;
in fact, that Mademoiselle was to be married.

On a certain rainy spring afternoon, a single hired hack drove up to the
main entrance of the old house, and after some little bustle and the
gathering of a crowd of damp children about the big doorway, 'Sieur
George, muffled in a newly-repaired overcoat, jumped out and went
up-stairs. A moment later he re-appeared, leading Mademoiselle, wreathed
and veiled, down the stairway. Very fair was Mademoiselle still. Her
beauty was mature,--fully ripe,--maybe a little too much so, but only a
little; and as she came down with the ravishing odor of bridal flowers
floating about her, she seemed the garlanded victim of a pagan
sacrifice. The mulattress in holiday gear followed behind.

The landlord owed a duty to the community. He arrested the maid on the
last step: "Your mistress, she goin' _pour marier_ 'Sieur George? It
make me glad, glad, glad!"

"Marry 'Sieur George? Non, Monsieur."

"Non? Not marrie 'Sieur George? _Mais comment_?"

"She's going to marry the tall gentleman."

"_Diable!_ ze long gentyman!"--With his hands upon his forehead, he
watched the carriage trundle away. It passed out of sight through the
rain; he turned to enter the house, and all at once tottered under the
weight of a tremendous thought--they had left the trunk! He hurled
himself up-stairs as he had done seven years before, but again--"Ah,
bah!!"--the door was locked, and not a picayune of rent due.

Late that night a small square man, in a wet overcoat, fumbled his way
into the damp entrance of the house, stumbled up the cracking stairs,
unlocked, after many languid efforts, the door of the two rooms, and
falling over the hair-trunk, slept until the morning sunbeams climbed
over the balcony and in at the window, and shone full on the back of his
head. Old Kookoo, passing the door just then, was surprised to find it
slightly ajar--pushed it open silently, and saw, within, 'Sieur George
in the act of rising from his knees beside the mysterious trunk! He had
come back to be once more the tenant of the two rooms.

'Sieur George, for the second time, was a changed man--changed from bad
to worse; from being retired and reticent, he had come, by reason of
advancing years, or mayhap that which had left the terrible scar on his
face, to be garrulous. When, once in a while, employment sought him (for
he never sought employment), whatever remuneration h