led to the deck. (Each room had one.) I followed a little later and had
the satisfaction of seeing Madame Margaretto Gordon, commonly called
"Maggie" by her husband and "Maw" by her son Patrick. She was seated on a
coil of rope, her son on the boards at her feet. An enormous dog crouched
beside them, with his head against Maggie's knee. The mother and son were
surprisingly clean. Maggie had on a simple brown calico dress and an
apron of blue ticking. A big red kerchief was crossed on her breast and
its twin brother covered her well combed and greased black hair. On her
feet were blue stockings and heavy leather shoes. The blue ticking shirt
and pantaloons and waistcoat of Master Pat were so clean that they shone;
his black cap covered his hair--as well combed as his mother's; but he was
barefooted. Gordon, Mario, and Celeste's eldest son, aged thirteen, were
busy about the deck; and papa, his cigar in his mouth and his hands in his
pockets, stood looking out on the levee. I sat down on one of the rough
benches that had been placed here and there, and presently my sister came
and sat beside me.

"Madame Carpentier seems to be a laggard," she said. She was burning to
see the arrival of her whom we had formed the habit of calling "the little
French peasant."

[Presently Suzanne begins shooting bonbons at little Patrick, watching the
effect out of the corners of her eyes, and by and by gives that smile, all
her own,--to which, says Françoise, all flesh invariably surrendered,--and
so became dumbly acquainted; while Carlo was beginning to swear "fit to
raise the dead," writes the memoirist, at the tardiness of the Norman
pair. But just then--]

A carriage drove up to within a few feet of our _chaland_ and Joseph
Carpentier alighted, paid the driver, and lifted from it one so delicate,