delighted with Aurora.  He told her in confidence that “Profess-or Frowenfel’” was the best man in the world; but she boldly said, taking pains to speak with a tear-and-a-half of genuine gratitude,—­“Egcep’ Monsieur Honore Grandissime,” and he assented, at first with hesitation and then with ardor.  The four formed a group of their own; and it is not certain that this was not the very first specimen ever produced in the Crescent City of that social variety of New Orleans life now distinguished as Uptown Creoles.

Almost the first thing acquired by Raoul in the camp of the enemy was a certain Aurorean audacity; and on the afternoon to which we allude, having told Frowenfeld a rousing fib to the effect that the multitudinous inmates of the maternal Grandissime mansion had insisted on his bringing his esteemed employer to see them, he and his bride had the hardihood to present him on the front veranda.

The straightforward Frowenfeld was much pleased with his reception.  It was not possible for such as he to guess the ire with which his presence was secretly regarded.  New Orleans, let us say once more, was small, and the apothecary of the rue Royale locally famed; and what with curiosity and that innate politeness which it is the Creole’s boast that he cannot mortify, the veranda, about the top of the great front stair, was well crowded with people of both sexes and all ages.  It would be most pleasant to tarry once more in description of this gathering of nobility and beauty; to recount the points of Creole loveliness in midsummer dress; to tell in particular of one and another eye-kindling face, form, manner, wit; to define the subtle qualities of Creole air and sky and scene, or the yet more delicate graces that characterize the music of Creole voice and speech and the light of Creole eyes; to set forth the gracious, unaccentuated dignity of the matrons and the ravishing archness of their daughters.  To Frowenfeld the experience seemed all unreal.  Nor was this unreality removed by conversation on grave subjects; for few among either the maturer or the younger beauty could do aught but listen to his foreign tongue like unearthly strangers in the old fairy tales.  They came, however, in the course of their talk to the subject of love and marriage.  It is not certain that they entered deeper into the great question than a comparison of its attendant Anglo-American and Franco-American conventionalities; but sure it is that somehow—­let those young souls divine the method who can—­every unearthly stranger on that veranda contrived to understand Frowenfeld’s English.  Suddenly the conversation began to move over the ground of inter-marriage between hostile families.  Then what eyes and ears!  A certain suspicion had already found lodgement in the universal Grandissime breast, and every one knew in a moment that, to all intents and purposes, they were about to argue the case of Honore and Aurora.