Bayou Folk

so luscious in Placide's sunny parterres, the peas and bean-vines and borders of strawberries so rank in his trim vegetable

applied to certain indebted clients back on the bayou who had not broken land yet. Ten minutes later the jud

o' his painted. And a pretty piece o

'Tit-Edouard, a strolling maigre-échine of indefinite occupation. "I se

nce," emphatically announced Uncle Ab

do. Did n' Marse Luke Williams orda de paint

ed the subject by announcing that Luke Williams's Durham bull had broken a leg the night before in Lu

nd arm in arm. If Placide happened to see them, he would leave his work to hand them a fine rose or a bunch of geraniums over the dazzling white fence. But if it chanced to be

and mount his horse as the day was closing, and away he would go across bayous and hills and fields until he was with her again. She had never seemed to Placide so lovable as she was then. She had grown more womanly and thoughtful. Her cheek had lost much of its color, and the

, he felt it was no time to think of marrying, and, like the worldly-wise young gentleman that he was, resolved to forget the littl

n; at the club he was a bear. A few young ladies whom he called upon were astonis

d not a violent one as he had designed. He abandoned himself completely to his passion, and dreamed of the girl by day and thought of her by night. How delicious had been the scent of her hair, the warmth of her breath, the nearness of her body, that rainy day when they stood close together upon the veranda!

ng his brain and thrilling his blood; but he sighed deep

on, a very message from heaven, to judge from the cry of joy with which he greeted it. He sent his cigar whirling throu

space of a moment he saw the whole delicious future which a kind fate had mapped out for him: those rich acres upon the Red River his own, bought and embellished with his inheritance; and Euphr

each other the mute and subtile language of reciprocal love-out under the forest trees, and in the quiet night-time on the plantation when the stars shone? And never so plainly as in the stately old drawing-room down on, Esplanade Stre