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There were several persons forming a half circle around her generous chimney early one evening in February. There were Madame Nicolas’ two tiny little girls who sat on the floor and played with a cat the whole time; Madame Nicolas herself, who only came for the little girls and insisted on hurrying away because it was time to put the children to bed, and who, moreover, was expecting a caller. There was a fair, blonde girl, one of the younger teachers at the Normal School.209 Gabriel Lucaze offered to escort her home when she got up to go, after Madame Nicolas’ departure. But she had already accepted the company of a silent, studious-looking youth who had come there in the hope of meeting her. So they all went away but young Gabriel Lucaze, Tante Elodie’s godson, who stayed and played cribbage210 with her. They played at a small table on which were a shaded lamp, a few magazines and a dish of pralines which the lady took great pleasure in nibbling during the reflective pauses of the game. They had played one game and were nearing the end of the second. He laid a queen upon the table.

“Fifteen-two,” she said, playing a five.

“Twenty, and a pair.”

“Twenty-five. Six points for me.”

“Its a ‘go.”’

“Thirty-one and out. That is the second game I’ve won. Will you play another rubber,211 Gabriel?”

“Not much, Tante Elodie, when you are playing in such luck. Besides, I’ve got to get out, it’s half-past eight.” He had played recklessly, often glancing at the bronze clock which reposed majestically beneath its crystal globe on the mantelpiece. He prepared at once to leave, going before the gilt-framed, oval mirror to fold and arrange a silk muffler beneath his great coat.

He was rather good looking. That is, he was healthy looking; his face a little florid, and hair almost black. It was short and curly and parted on one side. His eyes were fine when they were not bloodshot, as they sometimes were. His mouth might have been better. It was not disagreeable or unpleasant, but it was unsatisfactory and drooped a little at the corners. However, he was good to look at as he crossed the muffler over his chest. His face was unusually alert. Tante Elodie looked at him in the glass.

“Will you be warm enough, my boy? It has turned very cold since six o’clock.”

“Plenty warm. Too warm.”

“Where are you going?”

“Now, Tante Elodie,” he said, turning, and laying a hand on her shoulder; he was holding his soft felt hat in the other. “It is always ‘where are you going?’ ‘Where have you been?’ I have spoiled you. I have told you too much. You expect me to tell you everything; consequently, I must sometimes tell you fibs. I am going to confession. There! are you satisfied?” and he bent down and gave her a hearty kiss.

“I am satisfied, provided you go to the right priests to confession; not up the hill, mind you!”

“Up the hill” meant up at the Normal School with Tante Elodie. She was a very conservative person. “The Normal” seemed to her an unpardonable innovation, with its teachers from Minnesota, from Iowa, from God-knows-where, bringing strange ways and manners to the old town. She was one, also, who considered the emancipation of slaves a great mistake. She had many reasons for thinking so and was often called upon to enumerate this in her wordy arguments with her many opponents.

Two

TANTE ELODIE DISTINCTLY HEARD the doctor leave the Widow Nicolas’ at a quarter past ten. He visited the handsome and attractive young woman two evenings in the week and always left at the same hour. Tante Elodie’s double glass doors opened upon the wide upper gallery. Around the angle of the gallery were the apartments of Madame Nicolas. Any one visiting the widow was obliged to pass Tante Elodie’s door. Beneath was a store occasionally occupied by some merchant or other, but oftener vacant. A stairway led down from the porch to the yard where two enormous live-oaks grew and cast a dense shade upon the gallery above, making it an agreeable retreat and resting place on hot summer afternoons. The high, wooden