"Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline." She was saying it aloud--"faire

mal a Pauline."

But she gazes beyond the salon, back into the big dining hall, where

the white crepe myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has circled. It has

struck Ma'ame Pelagie full on the breast. She does not know it. She is

beyond there in the dining hall, where her father sits with a group

of friends over their wine. As usual they are talking politics. How

tiresome! She has heard them say "la guerre" oftener than once. La

guerre. Bah! She and Felix have something pleasanter to talk about, out

under the oaks, or back in the shadow of the oleanders.

But they were right! The sound of a cannon, shot at Sumter, has rolled

across the Southern States, and its echo is heard along the whole

stretch of Cote Joyeuse.

Yet Pelagie does not believe it. Not till La Ricaneuse stands before

her with bare, black arms akimbo, uttering a volley of vile abuse and

of brazen impudence. Pelagie wants to kill her. But yet she will not

believe. Not till Felix comes to her in the chamber above the dining

hall--there where that trumpet vine hangs--comes to say good-by to her.

The hurt which the big brass buttons of his new gray uniform pressed

into the tender flesh of her bosom has never left it. She sits upon the

sofa, and he beside her, both speechless with pain. That room would not

have been altered. Even the sofa would have been there in the same spot,

and Ma'ame Pelagie had meant all along, for thirty years, all along, to

lie there upon it some day when the time came to die.

But there is no time to weep, with the enemy at the door. The door has

been no barrier. They are clattering through the halls now, drinking the

wines, shattering the crystal and glass, slashing the portraits.

One of them stands before her and tells her to leave the house. She

slaps his face. How the stigma stands out red as blood upon his blanched

cheek!

Now there is a roar of fire and the flames are bearing down upon her

motionless figure. She wants to show them how a daughter of Louisiana

can perish before her conquerors. But little Pauline clings to her knees

in an agony of terror. Little Pauline must be saved.

"Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline." Again she is saying it

aloud--"faire mal a Pauline."

The night was nearly spent; Ma'ame Pelagie had glided from the bench

upon which she had rested, and for hours lay prone upon the stone

flagging, motionless. When she dragged herself to her feet it was to

walk like one in a dream. About the great, solemn pillars, one after the

other, she reached her arms, and pressed her cheek and her lips upon the

senseless brick.




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