"An old hired negress."
"Dad was all?"
"Yes."
"Hm-m-m!" she said piteously, and laughed in her sleeve.
Who could hope to catch and reproduce the continuous lively thrill which traversed the frame of the escaped book-worm as every moment there was repeated to his consciousness the knowledge that he was walking across the vault of heaven with the evening star on his arm--at least, that he was, at her instigation, killing time along the dim, ill-lighted trottoirs of the rue Chartres, with Aurora listening sympathetically at his side. But let it go; also the sweet broken English with which she now and then interrupted him; also the inward, hidden sparkle of her dancing Gallic blood; her low, merry laugh; the roguish mental reservation that lurked behind her graver speeches; the droll bravados she uttered against the powers that be, as with timid fingers he brushed from her shoulder a little remaining dust of the late encounter--these things, we say, we let go,--as we let butterflies go rather than pin them to paper.
They had turned into the rue Bienville, and were walking toward the river, Frowenfeld in the midst of a long sentence, when a low cry of tearful delight sounded in front of them, some one in long robes glided forward, and he found his arm relieved of its burden and that burden transferred to the bosom and passionate embrace of another--we had almost said a fairer--Creole, amid a bewildering interchange of kisses and a pelting shower of Creole French.
A moment after, Frowenfeld found himself introduced to "my dotter, Clotilde," who all at once ceased her demonstrations of affection and bowed to him with a majestic sweetness, that seemed one instant grateful and the next, distant.
"I can hardly understand that you are not sisters," said Frowenfeld, a little awkwardly.
"Ah! ecoutez!" exclaimed the younger.
"Ah! par exemple!" cried the elder, and they laughed down each other's throats, while the immigrant blushed.