out wide Elysian Fields Street, around the lily-covered bayous,
to Milneburg-on-the-Lake. Now, a picnic at Milneburg is a thing
to be remembered for ever. One charters a rickety-looking,
weather-beaten dancing-pavilion, built over the water, and after
storing the children--for your true Creole never leaves the small
folks at home--and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young
folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you
ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar,
a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille to at a
picnic?

Then one can fish in the lake and go bathing under the prim
bath-houses, so severely separated sexually, and go rowing on the
lake in a trim boat, followed by the shrill warnings of anxious
mamans. And in the evening one comes home, hat crowned with cool
gray Spanish moss, hands burdened with fantastic latanier baskets
woven by the brown bayou boys, hand in hand with your dearest
one, tired but happy.

At this particular picnic, however, there had been bitterness of
spirit. Theophile was Manuela's own especial property, and
Theophile had proven false. He had not danced a single waltz or
quadrille with Manuela, but had deserted her for Claralie, blonde
and petite. It was Claralie whom Theophile had rowed out on the
lake; it was Claralie whom Theophile had gallantly led to dinner;
it was Claralie's hat that he wreathed with Spanish moss, and
Claralie whom he escorted home after the jolly singing ride in
town on the little dummy-train.

Not that Manuela lacked partners or admirers. Dear no! she was