"Yass!--Ah, you!--you thing iv a man is nod a Creole 'e bown to be no
'coun'! I assu' you dey don' godd no boddy wad I fine a so nize
gen'leman lag Govenno' Cleb-orne! Ah! Clotilde, you godd no lib'ral'ty!"

The speaker rose, cast a discouraged parting look upon her narrow-minded
companion and went to investigate the slumbrous silence of the kitchen.




CHAPTER XXXVI

AURORA'S LAST PICAYUNE


Not often in Aurora's life had joy and trembling so been mingled in one
cup as on this day. Clotilde wept; and certainly the mother's heart
could but respond; yet Clotilde's tears filled her with a secret
pleasure which fought its way up into the beams of her eyes and asserted
itself in the frequency and heartiness of her laugh despite her sincere
participation in her companion's distresses and a fearful looking
forward to to-morrow.

Why these flashes of gladness? If we do not know, it is because we have
overlooked one of her sources of trouble. From the night of the _bal
masqué_ she had--we dare say no more than that she had been haunted; she
certainly would not at first have admitted even so much to herself. Yet
the fact was not thereby altered, and first the fact and later the
feeling had given her much distress of mind. Who he was whose image