passed his arm into the Italian's and drew him to the inn where my father
was stopping, and to his room. Here he learned from Mario that he had
bought one of those great barges that bring down provisions from the West,
and which, when unloaded, the owners count themselves lucky to sell at any
reasonable price. When my father proposed to Mario to be taken as a
passenger the poor devil's joy knew no bounds; but it disappeared when
papa added that he should take his two daughters with him.

The trouble was this: Mario was taking with him in his flatboat his wife
and his four children; his wife and four children were simply--mulattoes.
However, then as now, we hardly noticed those things, and the idea never
entered our minds to inquire into the conduct of our slaves. Suzanne and I
had known Celeste, Mario's wife, very well before her husband bought her.
She had been the maid of Marianne Perret, and on great occasions Marianne
had sent her to us to dress our hair and to prepare our toilets. We were
therefore enchanted to learn that she would be with us on board the
flatboat, and that papa had engaged her services in place of the
attendants we had to leave behind.

It was agreed that for one hundred dollars Mario Carlo would receive all
three of us as passengers, that he would furnish a room simply but
comfortably, that papa would share this room with us, that Mario would
supply our table, and that his wife would serve as maid and laundress. It
remained to be seen now whether our other fellow-travelers were married,
and, if so, what sort of creatures their wives were.

[The next day the four intended travelers met at Gordon's house. Gordon
had a wife, Maggie, and a son, Patrick, aged twelve, as unlovely in
outward aspect as were his parents. Carpentier, who showed himself even
more plainly than on the previous night a man of native refinement,