Bonaventure

with garret stairs outside in front on the veranda and its five-acre farm behind, was not even on a highway nor on the edge of any rich bas fond,-creek-bottom. It was au large,-far out across

as a bird sitting on her eggs. Only the practised eye could read aright the infrequent obscure signs of previous travel that showed the way to it,-sometimes no more than the occasional soilure o

ther, and, while their numerous progeny grouped themselves in the doorway one behind another in inverse order of age and stature, would either point out your lost way, or, quite as readily as Sosthène, ask you in beneath a roof where the coffee-pot never went dry or grew cold by day. Nor would it distinguish him from them to say he had many horses or was always well mounted. It was a land of horsemen. One met them incessantly; men in bro

n carpet that stood for roads-this one to Mermentau, that one to C?te Gelée, a third à la chapelle; the walls of unpainted pine; the beaded joists under the ceiling; the home-made furniture, bedsteads and wardrobes of stained woods, and hickory chairs with rawhide seats, hair uppermost; the white fringed counterpanes on the high featherbeds; especially, in the principal room, the house's one mantelpiece, of wood showily stained in three colors and surmounted by a pair of gorgeous vases,

from the family board and roof by a mysterious process called marrying, which greatly mystified Zoséphine, but equally pleased her by th

and choosing a mate. Such was ardent little Bonaventure; and none of the Gradnego weddings ever got quite through its ceremony without his big blue eyes being found full of tears-tears of mingled anger and desolation-be

im as his little Creole. And the other, the ex-governor came to these demonstrations-the great governor! who lifted him to his knee

family, the ex-governor made his appearance though no marriage was impending. Bonaventure

make haste and grow

e as he said privately in English, which tongue hi

rog. Yass; squeal wuss'n a pig. But still, sem time, you know, he ain't no coward; git mad in minut

ex-governor. And Sosthène, half to

ne nor any of his chil