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picaninnies darted hither and thither. Here and there we met an impatient Northerner, hastening along as if eager to be out of the hot, jostling crowd. "Yanks," I heard Norah mutter, but I knew not what "Yanks" were. Venders were crying their wares on every side—the Sicilian fisherman, the Spanish fruiterer, the negro, the quadroon, and the Creole, all in high-pitched but rarely disagreeable voices.
We passed as rapidly as possible through the narrow street, with its low, rambling buildings, and its plain little shops, and turning several abrupt corners, paused at last before a huge bronze gate set in the high wall which surrounded one of the oldest houses in that quarter.
Even before I neared the gate, I felt that Madame Laronne lived within.
Norah pressed a little bell in the side of the wall and before long, the gate swung open, and we entered a large garden. Stately palms waived their branches in the breeze, and the magnolias exhaled an odorous perfume from their creamy heads. A jasmine climbed along the rough stone wall, and festooned its graceful clusters over every available crack and crevice. A carpet of short, thick, velvety grass; and that was all. Simplicity, quiet, elegance, characterized the whole scene. Now, I was absolutely sure that Madam Laronne lived here.
Entering the great doorway, we passed through a broad, dimly-lighted hall, to the long, lofty drawing room. The room showed what had been luxurious elegance, but every piece of furniture, every ornament, the very pictures on the walls were of another age. The ancient wood work, and the faded tapestries showed time, not wear. The silver-wrought chandeliers held wax candles under their shades; rare portraits of soldiers and cavaliers in full dress, and ladies in Watteau gowns, gazed down out of their forgotten-era frames; there was no carpet, and the polished floor, black with age and oil, had its bareness relieved at intervals, by heavy rugs. The system of decoration here was of a century gone by.
And so was the sole occupant of the room; for Madam Laronne stood by one of the wide
windows through which floated the heavy, semitropical odors from the garden below.
"Come here, my child," she said, "come here." In her hand she held an ivory miniature of a man—a young man, with a noble countenance, and steady, unwavering eyes.
"Child," she murmured, "He was your grandfather, and I—I might—have been your grandmother." Her eyes looked troubled, but her face was that of a saint.
And that is the reason Madam Laronne is so sweet and beautiful, so different from us all; I felt it even then, but I know it now.
ETHEL AILENE HICKEY.
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About His Fraternity Pin.
"Well, good-night!" said Polly dimpling from the doorway. "It's a pity you have to go so early."
"I don't," said I.
"Why do you do it then? asked Polly looking innocent. Polly is singularly charming when she looks innocent so I considered the matter a moment and then took off my overcoat.
"I never really intended to go, you know," I said. "I was merely waiting for those young donkeys to amble off."
But Polly had been seized with a sudden fit of coughing and started to the dining room presumably to get some water. I was not particularly thirsty but I had a reason for going out into the dining room since Polly was so anxious to get there, so I walked in ahead. As I expected, my fraternity pin lay on the mantelpiece. Polly grasped for it but I was beforehand and put it in my pocket.
"Oh-h!" said she pleadingly.
"Well?" said I.
We looked at each other a moment, then Polly dimpled in that distracting way of hers.
"They're such nice fellows!" she said.
I didn't see how that had anything to do with it.
"But I didn't want to queer myself with them," said Polly.
"Very well," I said, a trifle abruptly. I must confess that I was ruffled, —decidedly so.