“Do you think it very wrong, Monsieur?” she asked.

I was more than taken aback by this tribute.

“Oh,” cried Nick, “the arbiter of etiquette!”

“Since I am here, Mademoiselle,” I answered, with anything but readiness, “I am not a proper judge.”

Her next question staggered me.

“You are well-born?” she asked.

“Mr. Ritchie’s grandfather was a Scottish earl,” said Nick, immediately, a piece of news that startled me into protest.  “It is true, Davy, though you may not know it,” he added.

“And you, Monsieur?” she said to Nick.

“I am his cousin,—­is it not honor enough?” said he.

“Yet you do not resemble one another.”

“Mr. Ritchie has all the good looks in the family,” said Nick.

“Oh!” cried the young lady, and this time she gave us her profile.

“Come, Mademoiselle,” said Nick, “since the fates have cast the die, let us all sit down in the shade.  The place was made for us.”

“Monsieur!” she cried, giving back, “I have never in my life been alone with gentlemen.”

“But Mr. Ritchie is a duenna to satisfy the most exacting,” said Nick; “when you know him better you will believe me.”

She laughed softly and glanced at me.  By this time we were all three under the branches.

“Monsieur, you do not understand the French customs.  Mon Dieu, if the good Sister Lorette could see me now—­”

“But she is safe in the convent,” said Nick.  “Are they going to put glass on the walls?”

“And why?” asked Mademoiselle, innocently.

“Because,” said Nick, “because a very bad man has come to New Orleans,—­one who is given to climbing walls.”

“You?”

“Yes.  But when I found that a certain demoiselle had left the convent, I was no longer anxious to climb them.”

“And how did you know that I had left it?”

I was at a loss to know whether this were coquetry or innocence.

“Because I saw you on the levee,” said Nick.

“You saw me on the levee?” she repeated, giving back.

“And I had a great fear,” the rogue persisted.

“A fear of what?”

“A fear that you were married,” he said, with a boldness that made me blush.  As for Mademoiselle, a color that vied with the June roses charged through her cheeks.  She stooped to pick up her sewing, but Nick was before her.

“And why did you think me married?” she asked in a voice so low that we scarcely heard.

“Faith,” said Nick, “because you seemed to be quarrelling with a man.”

She turned to him with an irresistible seriousness.

“And is that your idea of marriage, Monsieur?”

This time it was I who laughed, for he had been hit very fairly.

“Mademoiselle,” said he, “I did not for a moment think it could have been a love match.”

Mademoiselle turned away and laughed.