A huge masked ball emptied into the streets at daylight; a
meeting of all nations on common ground, a pot-pourri of every
conceivable human ingredient, but faintly describes it all.
There are music and flowers, cries and laughter and song and
joyousness, and never an aching heart to show its sorrow or dim
the happiness of the streets. A wondrous thing, this Carnival!

But the old cronies down in Frenchtown, who know everything, and
can recite you many a story, tell of one sad heart on Mardi Gras
years ago. It was a woman's, of course; for "Il est toujours les
femmes qui sont malheureuses," says an old proverb, and perhaps
it is right. This woman--a child, she would be called elsewhere,
save in this land of tropical growth and precocity--lost her
heart to one who never knew, a very common story, by the way, but
one which would have been quite distasteful to the haughty judge,
her father, had he known.

Odalie was beautiful. Odalie was haughty too, but gracious
enough to those who pleased her dainty fancy. In the old French
house on Royal Street, with its quaint windows and Spanish
courtyard green and cool, and made musical by the plashing of the
fountain and the trill of caged birds, lived Odalie in
convent-like seclusion. Monsieur le Juge was determined no hawk
should break through the cage and steal his dove; and so, though
there was no mother, a stern duenna aunt kept faithful watch.

Alas for the precautions of la Tante! Bright eyes that search for
other bright eyes in which lurks the spirit of youth and mischief
are ever on the look-out, even in church. Dutifully was Odalie
marched to the Cathedral every Sunday to mass, and Tante Louise,