confessed to a young wife without offspring. Mario told his story of love
and alliance with one as fair of face as he, and whom only cruel law
forbade him to call wife and compelled him to buy his children; and told
the story so well that at its close the father of Françoise silently
grasped the narrator's hand, and Carpentier, reaching across the table
where they sat, gave his, saying:

"You are an honest man, Monsieur Carlo."

"Will your wife think so?" asked the Italian.

"My wife comes from a country where there are no prejudices of race."

Françoise takes the pains to say of this part of the story that it was not
told her and Suzanne at this time, but years afterward, when they were
themselves wives and mothers. When, on the third day, her father saw
Carpentier's wife at the Norman peasant's lodgings, he was greatly
surprised at her appearance and manner, and so captivated by them that he
proposed that their two parties should make one at table during the
projected voyage--a proposition gratefully accepted. Then he left New
Orleans for his plantation home, intending to return immediately, leaving
his daughters in St. James to prepare for the journey and await the
arrival of the flatboat, which must pass their home on its way to the
distant wilds of Attakapas.]

FOOTNOTES:
[6] An extreme underestimate, easy for a girl to make of a scattered town
hidden among gardens and groves.--TRANSLATOR.
[7] Without doubting the existence of the _cabaret_ and the nickname, the
De la Chaise estate, I think, came from a real De la Chaise, true nephew