A block nearer the river stands a house altogether different from the remnant of old barracks.  It is of frame, with a deep front gallery over which the roof extends.  It has become a den of Italians, who sell fuel by daylight, and by night are up to no telling what extent of deviltry.  This was once the home of a gay gentleman, whose first name happened to be John.  He was a member of the Good Children Social Club.  As his parents lived with him, his wife would, according to custom, have been called Madame John but he had no wife.  His father died, then his mother; last of all, himself.  As he is about to be off, in comes Madame John, with ’Tite Poulette, then an infant, on her arm.

“Zalli,” said he, “I am going.”

She bowed her head, and wept.

“You have been very faithful to me, Zalli.”

She wept on.

“Nobody to take care of you now, Zalli.”

Zalli only went on weeping.

“I want to give you this house, Zalli; it is for you and the little one.”

An hour after, amid the sobs of Madame John, she and the “little one” inherited the house, such as it was.  With the fatal caution which characterizes ignorance, she sold the property and placed the proceeds in a bank, which made haste to fail.  She put on widow’s weeds, and wore them still when ’Tite Poulette “had seventeen,” as the frantic lads would say.

How they did chatter over her.  Quiet Kristian Koppig had never seen the like.  He wrote to his mother, and told her so.  A pretty fellow at the corner would suddenly double himself up with beckoning to a knot of chums; these would hasten up; recruits would come in from two or three other directions; as they reached the corner their countenances would quickly assume a genteel severity, and presently, with her mother, ’Tite Poulette would pass—­tall, straight, lithe, her great black eyes made tender by their sweeping lashes, the faintest tint of color in her Southern cheek, her form all grace, her carriage a wonder of simple dignity.

The instant she was gone every tongue was let slip on the marvel of her beauty; but, though theirs were only the loose New Orleans morals of over fifty years ago, their unleashed tongues never had attempted any greater liberty than to take up the pet name, ’Tite Poulette.  And yet the mother was soon to be, as we shall discover, a paid dancer at the Salle de Conde.

To Zalli, of course, as to all “quadroon ladies,” the festivities of the Conde-street ball-room were familiar of old.  There, in the happy days when dear Monsieur John was young, and the eighteenth century old, she had often repaired under guard of her mother—­dead now, alas!—­and Monsieur John would slip away from the dull play and dry society of Theatre d’Orleans, and come around with his crowd of elegant friends; and through the long sweet hours of the ball she had danced, and laughed, and coquetted under her satin mask, even to the baffling and tormenting