velvets, champagne, Château Yquem--"Grand Dieu Seigneur!" the old
Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands at the enumeration of
it.

Where the news came from nobody knew, but everything was certified
and accepted as facts, although, as between women, the grain of salt
should have been used. Impatience waxed, until nearly every day some
one would ring the bell of the old residence, to ask when the mistress
was going to move in. And such affectionate messages! And people would
not, simply could not, be satisfied with the incomprehensible answers.
And then it leaked out. The old lady was simply waiting for everything
to arrive--furniture, toilets, carriage, etc.--to make a grand
_entrée_ into her old sphere; to come riding on a throne, as it were.
And still the time passed, and she did not come. Finally two of the
clever-heads penetrated the enigma: _mauvaise honte_, shyness--so long
out of the world, so old; perhaps not sure of her welcome. So they
determined to seek her out.

[Illustration: THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY.]

"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The others
have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn who really
remember, really love her, etc."

Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is very hard
to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. Perhaps that is
why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at grocers' shops,
groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; interview corner
cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing is impossible to
the determined. The two ladies overcame all obstacles, and needled