The Flower of the Chapdelaines

"Why, mist'ess, I could tell dat a heap sight betteh when de time come. De Lawd mowt move me to do most fo' de one what least fitt'n' to"--she choked--"to die. An' yit ag'in dat...

Her manner was childlike, yet she always seemed to come up out of deep thought when she asked a question; she smiled diffidently until the reply began to come, then took on a re...

"Mesdemoiselles, the two sisters Chapdelaine. I chanced to meet them just now at the house of the archbishop, on the steps, they coming out, I going in. I had a book also for him."

The speaker really said "fauklezz," and it was a joy to Chester to hear her at last fall unwittingly into a Creole accent. "Well, anyhow," he led on, "the four lived together; a...

He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street, and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next corner below, she turned into Royal, toward him,...

"I can answer without. Yes, I know where you're going to-morrow and for what; to read that old manuscript. Mr. Chester, that other story--of my _grand'mére_, 'Maud'; how did you...

"Ah, another migsture! He was nowhere. Any'ow, tha'z how he feel; and those other three boy' they di'n' feel otherwise. You see? We coul'n' egsplain them anything--ab-out Mlle....

Yet to be poor on that island did not compel a sordid narrowing of life. You would have found our living-room furnished in mahogany rich and old. In a corner where the airs came...

The whole coterie felt a glad thrill. "Ah, madame," Beloiseau exclaimed, "you are co'rec'! But, any'ow, in a caze where the two faith' _are_ con-_tra_-ry 'tis not for you Protes...

There once more we were making good speed when we burst into an open grove where about a small, unpainted frame church a saddle-horse was tied under every swinging limb. Before...

"Paint in your sketch? Let me try. Maybe only because you tell the story, but maybe rather because it's so easy to see in you a reincarnation of your _grand'mére_--a Creole inca...

Suddenly he rose, uncovered, and with graceful dignity bowed. Then he unfolded a paper with large seals attached, and in a trembling but clear voice began to read. In the name a...

"We are granddaughter' of two _émigrés_ of the Revolution. The other two they were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time, we don't _feel_ antique. We don...

"He may sit up to-morrow," the doctor said. The fractured arm was put into a splint and sling, and a collar-bone had to be wrapped in place; but the absorbent cotton bandaged on...