“And not marry a soldier,” said the Grand Marquis.

“No,” said the lady, “not if you can gather enough myrtle-berries to afford me a profit and you a living.”

It was some thirty leagues or more eastward to the country of the Biloxis, a beautiful land of low, evergreen hills looking out across the pine-covered sand-keys of Mississippi Sound to the Gulf of Mexico.  The northern shore of Biloxi Bay was rich in candleberry-myrtle.  In Clotilde’s day, though Biloxi was no longer the capital of the Mississippi Valley, the fort which D’Iberville had built in 1699, and the first timber of which is said to have been lifted by Zephyr Grandissime at one end and Epaminondas Fusilier at the other, was still there, making brave against the possible advent of corsairs, with a few old culverines and one wooden mortar.

And did the orphan, in despite of Indians and soldiers and wilderness, settle down here and make a moderate fortune?  Alas, she never gathered a berry!  When she—­with the aged lady, her appointed companion in exile, the young commandant of the fort, in whose pinnace they had come, and two or three French sailors and Canadians—­stepped out upon the white sand of Biloxi beach, she was bound with invisible fetters hand and foot, by that Olympian rogue of a boy, who likes no better prey than a little maiden who thinks she will never marry.

The officer’s name was De Grapion—­Georges De Grapion.  The Marquis gave him a choice grant of land on that part of the Mississippi river “coast” known as the Cannes Brulees.

“Of course you know where Cannes Brulees is, don’t you?” asked Doctor Keene of Joseph Frowenfeld.

“Yes,” said Joseph, with a twinge of reminiscence that recalled the study of Louisiana on paper with his father and sisters.

There Georges De Grapion settled, with the laudable determination to make a fresh start against the mortifyingly numerous Grandissimes.

“My father’s policy was every way bad,” he said to his spouse; “it is useless, and probably wrong, this trying to thin them out by duels; we will try another plan.  Thank you,” he added, as she handed his coat back to him, with the shoulder-straps cut off.  In pursuance of the new plan, Madame De Grapion,—­the precious little heroine!—­before the myrtles offered another crop of berries, bore him a boy not much smaller (saith tradition) than herself.

Only one thing qualified the father’s elation.  On that very day Numa Grandissime (Brahmin-Mandarin de Grandissime), a mere child, received from Governor de Vaudreuil a cadetship.

“Never mind, Messieurs Grandissime, go on with your tricks; we shall see!  Ha! we shall see!”

“We shall see what?” asked a remote relative of that family.  “Will Monsieur be so good as to explain himself?”

* * * * *

Bang! bang!

Alas, Madame De Grapion!