nd the group that quite
filled the balcony had laid wrappings aside, as all flower-buds are apt
to do on such Creole January days, and shone resplendent in spring
attire.

The sight-seers passing below looked up by hundreds and smiled at the
ladies' eager twitter, as, flirting in humming-bird fashion from one
subject to another, they laughed away the half-hours waiting for the
pageant. By and by they fell a-listening, for Madame Delicieuse had
begun a narrative concerning Dr. Mossy. She sat somewhat above her
listeners, her elbow on the arm of her chair, and her plump white hand
waving now and then in graceful gesture, they silently attending with
eyes full of laughter and lips starting apart.

"_Vous savez_," she said (they conversed in French of course), "you know
it is now long that Dr. Mossy and his father have been in disaccord.
Indeed, when have they not differed? For, when Mossy was but a little
boy, his father thought it hard that he was not a rowdy. He switched him
once because he would not play with his toy gun and drum. He was not so
high when his father wished to send him to Paris to enter the French
army; but he would not go. We used to play often together on the
_banquette_--for I am not so very many years younger than he, no
indeed--and, if I wanted some fun, I had only to pull his hair and run
into the house; he would cry, and monsieur papa would come out with his
hand spread open and"--

Madame gave her hand a malicious little sweep, and Joined heartily in
the laugh which followed.

"That was when they lived over the way. But wait! you shall see: I have
something. This evening the General"--

The houses of Rue Royale gave a start and rattled their windows. In the
long, irregular line of balconies the beauty of the city rose up. Then
the houses jumped again and the windows rattled; Madame steps inside the
window and gives a message which the housemaid smiles at in receiving.
As she turns the houses shake again, and now again; and now there comes
a distant strain of trumpets, and by and by the drums and bayonets and
clattering hoofs, and plumes and dancing banners; far down the long
street stretch out the shining ranks of gallant men, and the fluttering,
over-leaning swarms of ladies shower down their sweet favors and wave
their countless welcomes.

In the front, towering above his captains, rides General Villivicencio,
veteran of 1814-15, and, with the gracious pomp of the old-time
gentleman, lif