The rose of old St. Louis

I bowed respectfully to my captain standing in the prow of the boat and looking across an expanse of swirling muddy water to the village on the bluffs beyond. I spoke more after...

My discomfiture, my mortification, my rage, the vision of dainty beauty, the strange little savant--every remembrance of my brief visit to Cahokia had been swept away by the rus...

We were standing on the wide gallery of Government House, looking up the Rue de la Tour to the "Fort on the Hill" with its massive round towers of stone and high stockade. We ha...

It was too late to beat a retreat. I caught once more a merry twinkle in the little doctor's eyes as we followed the dog, who, obedient to his mistress's voice, had rushed befor...

The good doctor uttered a sigh of relief as mademoiselle left the room, followed by madame, who no doubt, in the goodness of her heart, went out to praise the young lady for hav...

It was in the third dance, in the middle of an intricate figure (and Mademoiselle Chouteau was proving herself a most bewitching partner), that I suddenly discovered that neithe...

Yorke had reached the picnic-ground just long enough ahead of us to create pandemonium. He had reported both mademoiselle and me as killed and scalped by this time, and a band o...

In our room, making ready for midnight mass, which all the family, including guests, were expected to attend, my captain told me what Dr. Saugrain had said to him about mademois...

We met at reveille the next morning at nine--the great Christmas feast when kinsfolk all gather at the house of the head of the family and make merry together. Then I saw for wh...

I woke the next morning with a feeling of elation that for a moment I did not understand; then I recognized that it was a feeling that mademoiselle and I would never again be on...

Le Jour de l'An was a full day with me. Though I did not go to early mass with the family, I left the house when they did and had a fast gallop on Fatima's back through the gray...

Josef Papin was the first to bow the knee to me in mock homage, and as his laughing eyes met mine he said, in a tone not so low but that mademoiselle might have heard if she had...

At the door of the house, Black Hawk and Yorke branched off to the servants' quarters, and I followed them to see what had become of Fatima, for I had left her standing beside t...

For three days we had been floating down the Great River, and for three days I had kept my word. Mademoiselle had not been annoyed by me; she had hardly seen me. Much to my capt...

It was a busy morning that followed--no time for idle thoughts or vain regrets. If we were to dine with Mrs. O'Fallon at Mulberry Hill, all hands must work hard.

I dismounted and led her carefully down the steep bank and on to the ferry-boat. She followed me very willingly, but I stood with my arm over her glossy neck, for I saw she eyed...

I had been so abashed by my wretched mistake that I had not so much as told the President who I was (though, truth to tell, he had not asked me, and it would have been only anot...

I had made my toilet with such despatch that scarcely an hour after parting with Mr. Lewis at my inn I found myself once more at the White House. This time I was ushered up-stai...

I had been in Paris three weeks, and they had been weeks of unalloyed delight. The life and gaiety of the brilliant capital, the streets lined with handsome houses and thronged...

The next morning was Easter, and, dressed in a new suit of puce-colored ferrandine, with fresh ruffles of finest lace, and a new plume in my hat, I walked decorously beside my a...

"Prepare my bath!" Did ever such simple words have so dire a sound? Now was all hope of escape cut off; for was not the Consul's bath in the very room into which the closet wher...

It was ten o'clock when I reached Monsieur Marbois's house and found my aunt anxiously awaiting me. I had to explain the lateness of my return and the bespattered condition of m...

"You mean the young Duc d'Enghien? He is in Baden, you know, and not in a position to say anything. He is still émigré, and likely to remain so; for the First Consul distrusts a...

"Officer," said Bonaparte, in his iciest tones, "conduct Citizeness Capet and Citizen Le Moyne back to the salon. I have something to say to the others that it will not be neces...

All my riding up and down the Champs-Élysées was like to have been for naught. We had received orders to be in readiness to start on the morrow for Belgium, where Bonaparte was...

Not many hours later saw me seeking admittance to the stately but dilapidated hôtel of the Comtesse de Baloit in the Faubourg St. Germain. I was determined to see Pelagie, and i...

There was nothing to keep me in Paris. I could not see mademoiselle; she would not let me help her in her flight. I was restless and impatient to be off. No boat would sail from...

Clothilde, Cæsar, and I had ridden late into the night before we had reached the little village on the Seine where my boatman, Gustave, was to tie up. But it was moonlight and w...

It was in the early days of March, some eight months later, that the big barge in which I had come down the Ohio, and thus far on the Mississippi, put me ashore at New Madrid wi...

But my impatience was of little avail, for before we left Government House Dr. Saugrain invited me to dinner at Émigré's Retreat, and restless and impatient as I might be, I did...