Demoiselles' plantation. The old master, whose beaming presence had
always made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within the
bright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out of
frowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from his
overseer fretfully.

No wonder. The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to
it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,--so to call
them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew,
it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to
drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper
was a burden. _Ennui_ was turned into capital; every headache was
interpreted a premonition of ague; and when the native exuberance of a
flock of ladies without a want or a care burst out in laughter in the
father's face, they spread their French eyes, rolled up their little
hands, and with rigid wrists and mock vehmence vowed and vowed again
that they only laughed at their misery, and should pine to death unless
they could move to the sweet city. "Oh! the theatre! Oh! Orleans Street!
Oh! the masquerade! the Place d'Armes! the ball!" and they would call
upon Heaven with French irreverence, and fall into each other's arms,
and whirl down the hall singing a waltz, end with a grand collision and
fall, and, their eyes streaming merriment, lay the blame on the slippery
floor, that would some day be the death of the whole seven.

Three times more the fond father, thus goaded, managed, by
accident,--business accident,--to see old Charlie and increase his
offer; but in vain. He finally went to him formally.

"Eh?" said the deaf and distant relative. "For what you want him, eh?
Why you don't stay where you halways be 'appy? Dis is a blame old