e his own master? Oh, what does he want with
a poor fool of a son who will do only as he says? You think he will love
him less for healing instead of killing? Mesdemoiselles, you do not know
that noble soldier!'"

The noble soldier glowed, and bowed his acknowledgments in a dubious,
half remonstrative way, as if Madame might be producing material for her
next confession, as, indeed, she diligently was doing; but she went
straight on once more, as a surgeon would.

"But that other lady said: 'No, Madame, no, ladies, but I am going to
tell you why Monsieur, the General, is angry with his son.' 'Very well,
why?'--'Why? It is just--because--he is--a little man!'"

General Villivicencio stood straight up.

"Ah! mon ami," cried the lady, rising excitedly, "I have wounded you and
made you angry, with my silly revelations. Pardon me, my friend. Those
were foolish girls, and, anyhow, they admired you. They said you looked
glorious--grand--at the head of the procession."

Now, all at once, the General felt the tremendous fatigues of the day;
there was a wild, swimming, whirling sensation in his head that forced
him to let his eyelids sink down; yet, just there, in the midst of his
painful bewilderment, he realized with ecstatic complacency that the
most martial-looking man in Louisiana was standing in his spurs with the
hand of Louisiana's queenliest woman laid tenderly on his arm.

"I am a wretched tattler!" said she.

"Ah! no, Madame, you are my dearest friend, yes.'

"Well, anyhow, I called them fools. 'Ah! innocent creatures,' I said,
'think you a man of his sense and goodness, giving his thousands to the
sick and afflicted, will cease to love his only son because he is not
big like a horse or quarrelsome like a dog? No, ladies, there is a great
reason which none of you know.' 'Well, well,' they cried, 'tell it; he
has need of a very good reason; tell it now.' 'My ladies,' I said, 'I
must not'--for, General, for all the world I knew not a reason why you
should be angry against your son; you know, General, you have never told
me."

The beauty again laid her hand on his arm and gazed, with round-eyed
simplicity, into his sombre countenance. For an instant her witchery had
almost conquered.

"Nay, Madame, some day I shall tell you; I have more than one burden
_here_. But let me ask you to be seated, for I have a question, also,
for you, which I have longed to ask. It lies heavily upon my heart; I
must ask it now. A m