that the daughters, reading chagrin in his face, began to repent. They
loved their father as daughters can, and when they saw their pretended
dejection harassing him seriously they restrained their complaints,
displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically and
ostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. But
the new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined his
discontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free from
any real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to his
garden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, taking joy by
the shoulder and bidding her be gone to town, whither he might easily
have followed, only that the very same ancestral nonsense that kept
Injin Charlie from selling the old place for twice its value prevented
him from choosing any other spot for a city home.

But by and by the charm of nature and the merry hearts around him
prevailed; the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while the
year flared up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.

New Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles put
on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose;
the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich
sunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar of
last year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing the
caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the
filling of the river.

How high that river was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and
spun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift,--and how near
shore it came! Men were out day and night, watching the levee. On windy
nights even the old Colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with