Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitring general.

“Pere Jerome et cette milatraise.”

All eyes were bent toward them.

“She walks like a man,” said Madame Varrillat, in the language with which the conversation had opened.

“No,” said the physician, “like a woman in a state of high nervous excitement.”

Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said: 

“She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of Louisiana,”—­as near as the pun can be translated.  The company laughed.  Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose applause he prized, and she answered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back and contriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded.  Her laugh was musical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up and down.

“Pere Jerome is talking to her,” said one.  The priest was at that moment endeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the four people who sat watching his approach.  It was in the old strain: 

“Blame them one part, Madame Delphine, and their fathers, mothers, brothers, and fellow-citizens the other ninety-nine.”

But to every thing she had the one amiable answer which Pere Jerome ignored: 

“I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. Tout a fait.”

“They are coming here,” said Madame Varrillat, half articulately.

“Well, of course,” murmured another; and the four rose up, smiling courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with the priest.

No—­Pere Jerome thanked them—­he could not sit down.

“This, I believe you know, Jean, is Madame Delphine”—­

The quadroone courtesied.

“A friend of mine,” he added, smiling kindly upon her, and turning, with something imperative in his eye, to the group.  “She says she has an important private matter to communicate.”

“To me?” asked Jean Thompson.

“To all of you; so I will—­Good-evening.”  He responded nothing to the expressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine.  She murmured something.

“Ah! yes, certainly.”  He addressed the company “She wishes me to speak for her veracity; it is unimpeachable.  Well, good-evening.”  He shook hands and departed.

The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standing figure.

“Have you something to say to us?” asked Jean Thompson, frowning at her law-defying bonnet.

“Oui,” replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of one of the benches, “mo oule di’ tou’ c’ose”—­I want to tell every thing. “Miche Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune”—­the best man in the world; “mo pas capabe li fe tracas”—­I cannot give him trouble. “Mo pas capable, non; m’ole di’ tous c’ose.”  She attempted to fan herself, her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested on the ground.