The reception to General Zachary Taylor, on his return from Mexico, and the inauguration of the carnival combined to the observance of a dual festival day in the Crescent City. Up the river, past the rice fields, disturbing the ducks and pelicans, ploughed the noisy craft bearing “Old Rough and Ready” to the open port of the merry-making town. When near the barracks, the welcoming cannon boomed, and the affrighted darkies on the remote plantations shook with dire forebodings of a Mexican invasion.

The boat rounded at the Place d’Armes, where, beneath a triumphal arch, General Taylor received the crown and chaplet of the people––popular applause––and a salvo of eloquence from the mayor. With flying colors and nourish of trumpets, a procession of civic and military bodies was then formed, the parade finally halting at the St. Charles, where the fatted calf had been killed and the succulent ox roasted. Sounding a retreat, the veteran commander 465 fell back upon a private parlor to recuperate his forces in anticipation of the forthcoming banquet.

From this stronghold, where, however, not all of the enemy––his friends––could be excluded, there escaped an officer, with: “I’ll look around town a little, General.”

“Look around!” said the commander at the door. “I should think we had looked around! Well, don’t fall foul of too many juleps.”

With a laughing response, the young man pushed his way through the jostling crowd near the door, traversed the animated corridor, and soon found himself out on the busy street. Amid the variegated colors and motley throng, he walked, not, however, in King Carnival’s gay domains, but in a city of recollections. The tavern he had just left was associated with an unforgotten presence; the stores, the windows, the thoroughfares themselves were fraught with retrospective suggestion of the strollers.

Even now––and he came to an abrupt standstill––he was staring at the bill-board of the theater where she had played, the familiar entrance bedecked with bunting and festival inscriptions. Before its classic portals appeared the black-letter announcement of an act by “Impecunious Jordan, Ethiopian artist, followed by a Tableau of General Scott’s Capture of the City of Mexico.” Mechanically he stepped within and approached the box office. From the little cupboard, a strange face looked forth; even the ticket vender of old had been swallowed up by the irony of 466 fate, and, instead of the well-remembered blond mustache of the erstwhile seller of seats, a dark-bearded man, with sallow complexion, inquired:

“How many?”

“One,” said Saint-Prosper, depositing a Mexican piece on the counter before the cubby-hole.

“We’ve taken in plenty of this kind of money to-day,” remarked the man, holding up the coin. “I reckon you come to town with old Zach?”

“Yes.” The soldier was about to turn away, when he changed his mind and observed: “You used to give legitimate drama here.”

“That was some time ago,” said the man in the box, reflectively. “The soldiers like vaudeville. Ever hear Impecunious Jordan?”

“I never did.”

“Then you’ve got a treat,” continued the vender. “He’s the best in his line. Hope you’ll enjoy it, sir,” he concluded, with the courtesy displayed toward one and all of “Old Rough and Ready’s” men that day. “It’s the best seat left in the house. You come a little late, you know.” And as the other moved away:

“How different they look before and after! They went to Mexico fresh as daisies, and come back––those that do––dead beat, done up!”

Passing through the door, Saint-Prosper was ushered to his seat in a renovated auditorium; new curtain, re-decorated stalls, mirrors and gilt in profusion; the old restfulness gone, replaced by glitter and show. Amid changed conditions, the derangement of fixed external form and outline, the sight of a broad face in the orchestra and the aspect of a colossal form riveted his attention. This person was neither stouter nor thinner than before; he perspired neither more nor less; he was neither older nor younger––seemingly; he played on his instrument neither better nor worse. Youth might fade, honors take wing, the face of nature change, but Hans, Gargantuan Hans, appeared but a figure in an eternal present! Gazing at that substantial landmark, the soldier was carried back in thought over the long period of separation to a forest idyl; a face in the firelight; the song of the katydid; the drumming of the woodpecker. Dreams; vain dreams! They had assailed him before, but seldom so sharply as now in a place consecrated to the past.

sang and gesticulated a lady in abbreviated skirts and low-cut dress, winking and blinking in ironical shyness, and concluding with a flaunting of her gown, a toe pointed ceilingward, and a lively “breakdown.” Then she vanished with a hop, skip and a bow, reappeared with a ravishing smile and threw a generous assortment of kisses among the audience, 468 and disappeared with another hop, skip and a bow, as Impecunious Jordan burst upon the spectators from the opposite side of the stage.

Even the sight of Hans, a finger-post pointing to ways long since traversed, could not reconcile the soldier to his surroundings; the humor of the burnt-cork artist seemed inappropriate to the place; his grotesque dancing inadmissible in that atmosphere once consecrated to the comedy of manners and the stately march of the classic drama. Where Hamlet had moralized, a loutish clown now beguiled the time with some tom-foolery, his wit so broad, his quips were cannon-balls, and his audience, for the most part soldiers from Mexico, open-mouthed swallowed the entire bombardment. But Saint-Prosper, finding the performance dull, finally rose and went out, not waiting for the thrilling Tableaux of the Entrance into the City of Mexico of a hundred American troops (impersonated by young ladies in tropical attire) and the submission of Santa Anna’s forces (more young ladies) by sinking gracefully to their bended knees.

Fun and frolic were now in full swing on the thoroughfares; Democritus, the rollicker, had commanded his subjects to drive dull care away and they obeyed the jovial lord of laughter. Animal spirits ran high; mischief beguiled the time; mummery romped and rioted. Marshaled by disorder, armed with drollery and divers-hued banners, they marched to the Castle of Chaos, where the wise are fools, the old are young and topsy-turvy is the order of the day.

As Saint-Prosper stood watching the versicolored concourse swarm by, a sudden rush of bystanders to view Faith on a golden pedestal, looking more like Coquetry, propelled a dainty figure against the soldier. Involuntarily he put out his arm which girded a slender waist; Faith drove simpering by; the crowd melted like a receding wave, and the lady extricated herself, breathless as one of the maids in Lorenzo de Medici’s Songs of the Carnival.

“How awkward!” she murmured. “How––”

The sentence remained unfinished and an exclamation, “Mr. Saint-Prosper!” punctuated a gleam of recognition.

“Miss Duran!” he exclaimed, equally surprised, for he had thought the strollers scattered to the four winds.

“Mrs. Service, if you please!” Demurely; at the same time extending her hand with a faint flush. “Yes; I am really and truly married! But it is so long since we met, I believe I––literally flew to your arms!”

“That was before you recognized me,” he returned, in the same tone.

Susan laughed. “But how do you happen to be here? I thought you were dead. No; only wounded? How fortunate! Of course you came with the others. I should hardly know you. I declare you’re as thin as a lath and gaunt as a ghost. You look older, too. Remorse, I suppose, for killing so many poor Mexicans!”

“And you”––surveying her face, which had the freshness of morn––“look younger!”

“Of course!” Adjusting some fancied disorder of hair or bonnet. “Marriage is a fountain of youth for”––with a sigh––“old maids. Susan Duran, spinster! Horrible! Do you blame me?”

“For getting married? Not at all. Who is the fortunate man?” asked Saint-Prosper.

“A minister; an orthodox minister; a most orthodox minister!”

“No?” His countenance expressed his sense of the incongruity of the union. Susan one of the elect; the meek and lowly yokemate of––“How did it happen?” he said.

“In a perverse moment, I––went to church,” answered Susan. “There, I met him––I mean, I saw him––no, I mean, I heard him! It was enough. All the women were in love with him. How could I help it?”

“He must have been very persuasive.”

“Persuasive! He scolded us every minute. Dress and the devil! I”––casting down her eyes––“interested him from the first. He––he married me to reform me.”

“Ah,” commented the soldier, gazing doubtfully upon Susan’s smart gown, which, with elaborate art, followed the contours of her figure.

“But, of course, one must keep up appearances, you know,” she continued. “What’s the use of being a minister’s wife if you aren’t popular with the 471 congregation? At least,” she added, “with part of them!” And Susan tapped the pavement with a well-shod boot and showed her white teeth. “If you weren’t popular, you couldn’t fill the seats––I mean pews,” she added, evasively. “But you must come and see me––us, I should say.”

“Unfortunately, I am leaving to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” repeated Susan, reflectively. The pupils of her eyes contracted, something they did whenever she was thinking deeply, and her gaze passed quickly over his face, striving to read his impassive features. “So soon? When the carnival is on! That is too bad, to stay only one day, and not call on any of your old friends! Constance, I am sure, would be delighted to see you.”

Many women would have looked away under the circumstances, but Susan’s eyes were innocently fixed upon his. Half the pleasure of the assurance was in the accompanying glance and the friendly smile that went with it.

But a quiet question, “Miss Carew is living here?” was all the satisfaction she received.

“Yes. Have you not heard? She has a lovely home and an embarrassment of riches. Sweet embarrassment! Health and wealth! What more could one ask? Although I forgot, she was taken ill shortly after you left.”

“Ill,” he said, starting.

“Quite! But soon recovered!” And Susan launched into a narration of the events that had taken 472 place while he was in Mexico, to which he listened with the composure of a man who, having had his share of the vagaries of fate, is not to be taken aback by new surprises, however singular or tragic. Susan expected an expression of regret––by look or word––over the loss of the marquis’ fortune, but either he simulated indifference or passed the matter by with philosophical fortitude.

“Poor Barnes!” was his sole comment.

“Yes; it was very lonely for Constance at first,” rattled on Susan. “But I fancy she will find a woman’s solace for that ailment,” she added meaningly.

“Marriage?” he asked soberly.

“Well, the engagement is not yet announced,” said Susan, hesitatingly. “But you know how things get around? And the count has been so attentive! You remember him surely––the Count de Propriac? But I must be off. I have an appointment with my husband and am already half an hour late.”

“Don’t let me detain you longer, then, I beg.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. He’s so delightfully jealous when I fail to appear on the stroke of the clock! Always imagines I am in some misch––but I mustn’t tell tales out of school! So glad to have met you! Come and see me––do!”

And Susan with friendly hand-clasp and lingering look, tore herself away, the carnival lightness in her feet and the carnival laughter in her eyes.

“He is in love with her still,” she thought, “or he wouldn’t have acted so indifferent!” Her mind reverted 473 to a cold little message she had received from Constance. “And to think he was innocent after all!” she continued, mentally reviewing the contents of the letter in which Constance had related the conversation with the lawyer. “I don’t believe he’ll call on her now, though, after––Well, why shouldn’t I have told him what every one is talking about? Why not, indeed?”

A toss of the head dismissed the matter and any doubts pertaining thereto, while her thoughts flew from past to present, as a fortress on a car, its occupants armed with pellets of festival conflict, drove by amid peals of laughter. Absorbed in this scene of merriment, Susan forgot her haste, and kept her apostolic half waiting at the rendezvous with the patience of a Jacob tarrying for a Rachel. But when she did finally appear, with hat not perfectly poised, her hair in a pretty disarray, she looked so waywardly charming, he forgave her on the spot, and the lamb led the stern shepherd with a crook from Eve’s apple tree.

“As thin as a lath and gaunt as a ghost!” repeated Saint-Prosper, as the fair penitent vanished in a whirl of gaiety. “Susan always was frank.”

Smiling somewhat bitterly, he paused long enough to light a cigar, but it went out in his fingers as he strolled mechanically toward the wharves, through the gardens of a familiar square, where the wheezing of the distant steamers and the echoes of the cathedral clock marked the hours of pleasure or pain to-day as it had tolled them off yesterday. Beyond the pale 474 of the orange trees with their golden wealth, the drays were rumbling in the streets and there were the same signs of busy traffic––for the carnival had not yet become a legal holiday––that he had observed when the strollers had reached the city and made their way to the St. Charles. He saw her anew, pale and thoughtful, leaning on the rail of the steamer looking toward the city, where events, undreamed of, were to follow thick and fast. He saw her, a slender figure, earnest, self-possessed, enter the city gates, unheralded, unknown. He saw her as he had known her in the wilderness––not as fancy might now depict her, the daughter of a marquis––a strolling player, and as such he loved best to think of her.

Arising out of his physical weakness and the period of inaction following the treaty of peace, he experienced a sudden homesickness for his native land; a desire to re-visit familiar scenes, to breathe the sweet air of the country, where his boyhood had been passed, to listen to the thunder of the boulevards, to watch the endless, sad-joyful processions.

Not far distant from the blossoming, redolent square was the office of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company, where a clerk, with a spray of jessamine in his coat, bent cordially toward Saint-Prosper as the latter entered, and, approaching the desk, inquired:

“The Dauphin is advertised to sail to-morrow for France?”

“Yes, sir; at twelve o’clock noon.”

“Book me for a berth. Ernest Saint-Prosper,” he added, in answer to the other’s questioning look.

“Very good, sir. Would you like some labels for your baggage? Where shall we send for it? The St. Charles? Very well, sir. Are you going to the tableaux to-night?” he continued, with hospitable interest in one whom he rightly conceived a stranger in the city. “They say it will be the fashionable event. Good-day.” As the prospective passenger paid for and received his ticket. “A pleasant voyage! The Dauphin is a new ship and should cross in three weeks––barring bad weather! Don’t forget the tableaux. Everybody will be there.”

The soldier did not reply; his heart had given a sudden throb at the clerk’s last words. Automatically he placed his ticket in his pocket, and randomly answered the employee’s further inquiries for instructions. He was not thinking of the Dauphin or her new engines, the forerunner of the modern quadruple-expansion arrangement, but through his brain rang the assurance: “Everybody will be there.” And all the way up the street, it repeated itself again and again.