But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendor was set, and her husband—­let us call him so for her sake—­was long dead.  He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man of noble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we can do without.

Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine’s chief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked up in-doors.  She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,—­a very worthy person; and they were, maybe, nearer correct then they knew.  They rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a small, rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a gentle thoughtfulness of expression which would take long to describe:  call it a widow’s look.

In speaking of Madame Delphine’s house, mention should have been made of a gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk.  It is gone now, and was out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron staple clasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.

Which leads us to speak of another person.

CHAPTER III.

CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.

He was one of those men that might be any age,—­thirty, forty, forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and what was only weather.  His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but also luminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterward remembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of his eyes.  Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the closest.  But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not with the oddness that he who had reared him had striven to produce.

He had not been brought up by mother or father.  He had lost both in infancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa of the colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make “his boy” as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as it became a pure-blooded French Creole to be who would trace his pedigree back to the god Mars.

“Remember, my boy,” was the adjuration received by him as regularly as his waking cup of black coffee, “that none of your family line ever kept the laws of any government or creed.”  And if it was well that he should bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from the nurse’s arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of gentle, judicial benevolence.  The domestics of the old man’s house used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.  His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial expression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or of large dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.