that pirate the guardian of my daughter."

Père Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.

"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this
country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think
that one is, without doubt, the best."

"Without doubt," echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawing
backward. Père Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.

The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon the
threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting
from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair
where the hat had covered it, and dark below, gently stroking back his
very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while
Père Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger
hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's
eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor
were of white duck.

"Well, Père Jerome," she said, in a hurried undertone, "I am just going
to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"

"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, Madame
Carraze."

And as she departed, the priest turned to the newcomer and extended both
hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been
addressing the quadroone: