have. And she was dressed very prettily, too, in her long white
_negligée_, with plenty of lace and ruffles and blue ribbons,--such as
only the Creole girls can make, and brides, alas! wear,--the pretty
honeymoon costume that suggests, that suggests--well! to proceed. "The
poor little cat!" as one could not help calling her, so _mignonne_,
so blond, with the pretty black eyes, and the rosebud of a
mouth,--whenever she closed it,--a perfect kiss.

"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at the
beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, never--poor papa!
Indeed, I should never have asked him; it would only have been one
humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it was well he was dead, if
it was God's will for it to be. Of course I had my dreams, like
everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so small; it seemed like a
law I should marry a _brun_, a tall, handsome _brun_, with a mustache
and a fine barytone voice. That was how I always arranged it, and--you
will laugh--but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and a
good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all that,
and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and voyages
to Europe, and--well, everything God had to give, in fact. You know, I
get that from papa, wanting everything God has to give! Poor papa! It
seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my handsome _brun_. I used
to look for him positively on my way to school, and back home again,
and whenever I would think of him I would try and walk so prettily,
and look so pretty! _Mon Dieu!_ I was not ten years old yet! And
afterward it was only for that that I went into society. What should
girls go into society for otherwise but to meet their _brun_ or their
blond? Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew
and sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into
society only for that; and I do not believe what girls say--they go