"I don' goin' to dizzerd you, Madame Carraze," he said.

She lifted her eyes. They filled. She shook her head, a tear fell, she
bit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, sat
down upon the bench and wept until she shook.

"You dunno wad I mean, Madame Carraze?"

She did not know.

"I mean dad guardian of you' daughteh godd to fine 'er now one 'uzban';
an' noboddie are hable to do dad egceb de good God 'imsev. But, Madame,
I tell you wad I do."

She rose up. He continued:

"Go h-open you' owze; I fin' you' daughteh dad uzban'."

Madame Delphine was a helpless, timid thing; but her eyes showed she was
about to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand--it
touched her shoulder--and said, kindly still, and without eagerness:

"One w'ite man, Madame: 'tis prattycabble. I know 'tis prattycabble. One
w'ite jantleman, Madame. You can truz me. I goin' fedge 'im. H-ondly you
go h-open you' owze."

Madame Delphine looked down, twining her handkerchief among her fingers.

He repeated his proposition.

"You will come firz by you'se'f?" she asked.

"Iv you wand."

She lifted up once more her eye of faith. That was her answer.

"Come," he said, gently, "I wan' sen' some bird ad you' lill' gal."

And they went away, Madame Delphine's spirit grown so exaltedly bold
that she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:

"Miche Vignevielle, I thing Pere Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell you
someboddie."

CHAPTER XI.

FACE TO FACE.

Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.

"_Ah! ma, piti sans popa_! Ah I my little fatherless one!" Her faded
bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and
her dropped basket, with its "few lill' _becassines-de-mer_" dangling
from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Ma
piti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"

"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or
fifth time.

"_Dieu sait, ma cere; mo pas conne!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannot
tell!

The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and
burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept
afresh.

"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,
fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's
bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"

"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing--I am such a fool."

The girl's eyes filled