here and there some heavier and more velvety, where a less vivacious expression betrays a share of Spanish blood.  As Grandissimes, you mark their tendency to exceed the medium Creole stature, an appearance heightened by the fashion of their robes.  There is scarcely a rose in all their cheeks, and a full red-ripeness of the lips would hardly be in keeping; but there is plenty of life in their eyes, which glance out between the curtains of their long lashes with a merry dancing that keeps time to the prattle of tongues.  You are not able to get a straight look into them, and if you could you would see only your own image cast back in pitiful miniature; but you turn away and feel, as you fortify yourself with an inward smile, that they know you, you man, through and through, like a little song.  And in turning, your sight is glad to rest again on the face of Honore’s mother.  You see, this time, that she is his mother, by a charm you had overlooked, a candid, serene and lovable smile.  It is the wonder of those who see that smile that she can ever be harsh.

The playful, mock-martial tread of the delicate Creole feet is all at once swallowed up by the sound of many heavier steps in the hall, and the fathers, grandfathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews of the great family come out, not a man of them that cannot, with a little care, keep on his feet.  Their descendants of the present day sip from shallower glasses and with less marked results.

The matrons, rising, offer the chief seat to the first comer, the great-grandsire—­the oldest living Grandissime—­Alcibiade, a shaken but unfallen monument of early colonial days, a browned and corrugated souvenir of De Vaudreuil’s pomps, of O’Reilly’s iron rule, of Galvez’ brilliant wars—­a man who had seen Bienville and Zephyr Grandissime.  With what splendor of manner Madame Fusilier de Grandissime offers, and he accepts, the place of honor!  Before he sits down he pauses a moment to hear out the companion on whose arm he had been leaning.  But Theophile, a dark, graceful youth of eighteen, though he is recounting something with all the oblivious ardor of his kind, becomes instantly silent, bows with grave deference to the ladies, hands the aged forefather gracefully to his seat, and turning, recommences the recital before one who hears all with the same perfect courtesy—­his beloved cousin Honore.

Meanwhile, the gentlemen throng out.  Gallant crew!  These are they who have been pausing proudly week after week in an endeavor (?) to understand the opaque motives of Numa’s son.

In the middle of the veranda pauses a tall, muscular man of fifty, with the usual smooth face and an iron-gray queue.  That is Colonel Agamemnon Brahmin de Grandissime, purveyor to the family’s military pride, conservator of its military glory, and, after Honore, the most admired of the name.  Achille Grandissime, he who took Agricola away from Frowenfeld’s shop in the carriage, essays to engage Agamemnon in conversation,