STARLIGHT IN THE RUE CHARTRES

“Oh!  M’sieur Frowenfel’, tague me ad home!”

It was Aurora, who caught the apothecary’s arm vehemently in both her hands with a look of beautiful terror.  And whatever Joseph’s astronomy might have previously taught him to the contrary, he knew by his senses that the earth thereupon turned entirely over three times in two seconds.

His confused response, though unintelligible, answered all purposes, as the lady found herself the next moment hurrying across the Place d’Armes close to his side, and as they by-and-by passed its farther limits she began to be conscious that she was clinging to her protector as though she would climb up and hide under his elbow.  As they turned up the rue Chartres she broke the silence.

“Oh!-h!”—­breathlessly,—­“‘h!—­M’sieur Frowenf’—­you walkin’ so faz!”

“Oh!” echoed Frowenfeld, “I did not know what I was doing.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the lady, “me, too, juz de sem lag you! attendez; wait.”

They halted; a moment’s deft manipulation of a veil turned it into a wrapping for her neck.

“‘Sieur Frowenfel’, oo dad man was?  You know ’im?”

She returned her hand to Frowenfeld’s arm and they moved on.

“The one who spoke to you, or—­you know the one who got near enough to apologize is not the one whose horse struck you!”

“I din know.  But oo dad odder one?  I saw h-only ’is back, bud I thing it is de sem—­”

She identified it with the back that was turned to her during her last visit to Frowenfeld’s shop; but finding herself about to mention a matter so nearly connected with the purse of gold, she checked herself; but Frowenfeld, eager to say a good word for his acquaintance, ventured to extol his character while he concealed his name.

“While I have never been introduced to him, I have some acquaintance with him, and esteem him a noble gentleman.”

“W’ere you meet him?”

“I met him first,” he said, “at the graves of my parents and sisters.”

There was a kind of hush after the mention, and the lady made no reply.

“It was some weeks after my loss,” resumed Frowenfeld.

“In wad cimetiere dad was?”

“In no cemetery—­being Protestants, you know—­”

“Ah, yes, sir?” with a gentle sigh.

“The physician who attended me procured permission to bury them on some private land below the city.”

“Not in de groun’[2]?”

[Footnote 2:  Only Jews and paupers are buried in the ground in New Orleans.]

“Yes; that was my father’s expressed wish when he died.”

“You ’ad de fivver?  Oo nurse you w’en you was sick?”

“An old hired negress.”

“Dad was all?”

“Yes.”

“Hm-m-m!” she said piteously, and laughed in her sleeve.