"Oh, yes, I won't," said Rondeau, extending his mouth into a broad grin at his master's allusion to Leffie, a bright-looking, handsome, mulatto girl, whom next to himself, Rondeau thought was the prettiest creature in the world.

At last he bowed himself out of the room, and proceeded to execute his master's commands. On pa.s.sing the kitchen, he "just looked in a little,"

and the sight of Leffie's bright eyes and rosy lips made him forgetful of his promise. Going up to her, he announced his intention of kissing her. A violent squabble ensued, in which the large china dish which Leffie held in her hand was broken, two pickle jars thrown down, chairs upset, the baby scalded, and the dog Ta.s.so's tail nearly crushed! At last Aunt Dilsey, the head cook and mother of Leffie, interposed, and seizing the soup ladle as the first thing near her, she laid about her right and left, dealing no very gentle blows at the well-oiled hair of Rondeau, who was glad to beat a retreat from the kitchen, amid the loud laughter of the blacks who had witnessed the scene.

Leaving the house he was soon on his way to the post office, and having procured his master's mail he started for home. At length, slackening his pace, he took from his pocket the letters and carefully scrutinized the inscription of each. He was in the habit of going to the post office, and after his master's return from Kentucky, he had noticed two or three letters written in what he called "a mighty fineified hand," and he had whispered to Leffie as a great secret that "'twere his private opinion marster was going to marry some Kentucky girl." Recently he had noticed the absence of those letters, and also the absence of his master's accustomed cheerfulness. Rondeau was pretty keen, and putting the two circ.u.mstances together, he again had a whispered conference with Leffie, whom he told that "most probably the Kentucky girl had flunked, for marster hadn't had a letter in ever so long, and every time he didn't get one he looked as blue as a whetstone!"

"Glad on't," said Leffie. "Hope he won't have any your foreigners. Allus did wish he'd have Miss Mortimer. Next to old marster and young marster Lacey, her father's the toppinest man in New Orleans. And it's a pity for young marster to stoop."

After examining all the letters closely, Rondeau came to the conclusion that the right one wasn't there, and he thought, "Well, Leffie'll be glad, and marster'll be sorry, and hang me if I ain't sorry too, for marster's a plaguey fine chap, and desarves anybody there is in Kentucky."

Meanwhile Dr. Lacey was anxiously awaiting Rondeau's return, and when he caught sight of him, coming at an unusually rapid pace toward the house, he thought, "Surely Rondeau would never hurry so if he had not good news for me," but the next thought was, "How should he know what it is I am so anxious to get?" Still he waited rather impatiently for Rondeau to make his appearance. In a moment he entered the room, and commenced pulling the letters from his pocket, saying, "I've got a heap this time, marster."

He then laid them one by one on the marble dressing table, counting them as he did so; "Thar's one, thar's two, thar's three, thar's four."

"Stop counting them, can't you, and give me all you have directly," said Dr. Lacey, as his eye ran hurriedly over the superscription of each, and found not the one he sought.

"That's jist what I've done, marster," said Rondeau, bowing. "The one you want wasn't thar."

Dr. Lacey glanced hastily at his servant, and felt a.s.sured that the quick-witted negro was in possession of his secret. "You may go," said he, "and mind, never let me hear of your commenting about my letters."

"No, marster, never; 'strue's I live," said Rondeau, who left the room and went in quest of Leffie. But he did not dare to repeat the scene of the morning, for Aunt Dilsey was present, bending over a large tub of boiling suds, and he felt sure that any misdemeanor on his part would call forth a more affectionate shower bath than he cared about receiving. So he concluded to bring about his purpose by complimenting Aunt Dilsey on her fine figure (she weighed just two hundred!).

"Aunt Dilsey," said he, "'pears to me you have an uncommon good form, for one as plump and healthy-like as you are."

Aunt Dilsey was quite sensitive whenever her size was alluded to, and she replied rather sharply: "You git along, you bar's ile skullcap. 'Twon't be healthy for you to poke fun at me."

"'Pon my word," said the mischievous Rondeau, "I ain't poking fun at you.

I do really think so. I thought of it last Sunday, when you had on that new gown, that becomes you so well."

"Which one?" said Aunt Dilsey, a little mollified, "the blue and yaller one?"

"The same," answered Rondeau. "It fits you good. Your arm looks real small in it."

Leffie was nearly convulsed with laughter, for she had tried the experiment, and found that the distance round her mother's arm was just the distance round her own slender waist.

"Do tell!" said Aunt Dilsey, stopping from her work and wiping the drops of perspiration from her shining forehead. "Do tell! It feels drefful sleek on me, but my old man Claib says it's too tight."

"Not an atom too tight," answered Rondeau, at the same time getting nearer and nearer to Leffie, and laying his hand on her shoulder.

Before she was aware of his intention, he stole the kiss he was seeking for. Leffie rewarded him by spitting in his face, while Aunt Dilsey called out, "Ain't you 'shamed to act so, Leffie? Don't make a fool of yourself!"

a.s.sured by this speech, Rondeau turned, and kissing Aunt Dilsey herself, was off just in time to escape a basin of hot suds which that highly-scandalized lady hurled after him.

"I'll tell marster this minute," said she, "and see if he hain't got nothin' to set the lazy lout a-doin'." So saying, the old lady waddled into the house, and going upstairs, knocked at Dr. Lacey's door.

"Come in," said the doctor, and Aunt Dilsey entered. In a very sad tone, she commenced telling how "that 'tarnal Rondeau was raising Cain in the kitchen. He's kissed Leffie, and me too!"

"Kissed you, has he?" said Dr. Lacey.

"Yes, sar, he done that ar very thing, spang on the mouth," said Dilsey.

"Well, Dilsey," said the doctor with a roguish twinkle of the eye, "don't you think he ought to be paid?"

Aunt Dilsey began to cry, and said, "I never thought that marster would laugh at old Aunt Dilsey."

"Neither will I," said the doctor. Then tossing her a picayune, he said, "take that, Aunt Dilsey. I reckon it will pay for the kiss. I'll see that Rondeau does not repeat his offense, on you at least."

Aunt Dilsey went back to the kitchen, thinking that "Marster George was the funniest and best marster on earth."

While Rondeau was carrying on his flirtation in the kitchen, Dr. Lacey was differently employed. Hope deferred had well nigh made his heart sick.

"What can be the reason," thought he, "that f.a.n.n.y does not write? I have written repeatedly for the last two months and have had no answer." Then as a new idea struck him, he added, "Yes, I'll write to Mr. Miller, and ask him what has happened." Suiting the action to the word, he drew up his writing desk, and in a short time a letter was written and directed to Mr.

Miller.

He arose to summon Rondeau to take it to the office; but ere he had touched the bell rope, pride whispered, "Don't send that letter; don't let Mr. Miller into your private affairs. If f.a.n.n.y were sick, some one would write to you."

So the bell was not rung, and during the next half-hour Dr. Lacey amused himself by mechanically tearing it into small fragments. Ah, Dr. Lacey, 'twas a sorry moment when you listened to the whispering of that pride!

Had that letter been sent, it would have saved you many sleepless nights of sorrow. But it was not to be.

That night there was to be a large party at the house of Mr. Mortimer, whom Leffie had mentioned as second to the Laceys in wealth. Mr. Mortimer was the uncle at whose house Florence Woodburn was visiting, and the party was given in honor of her arrival, and partly to celebrate Mabel Mortimer's birthday. Mabel was an intelligent, accomplished girl, and besides being something of a beauty, was the heiress expectant of several hundred thousand. This const.i.tuted her quite a belle, and for three or four years past she and Dr. Lacey had been given to each other by the clever gossips of New Orleans. Mr. Lacey senior was also rather anxious that his son should marry Mabel; so Julia was not far out of the way when she wrote to f.a.n.n.y that Dr. Lacey's parents wished to secure a match between him and a New Orleans belle. Had Dr. Lacey never seen f.a.n.n.y, he possibly might have wedded Mabel. But his was a heart which could love but once, and although the object of his love should prove untrue, his affections could not easily be transferred to another; so that it was all in vain that Mabel Mortimer, on the evening of the party, stood before her mirror arranging and rearranging the long curls of her dark hair and the folds of her rich white satin, wondering all the while if Dr. Lacey would approve her style of dress.

Turning to Florence, she said, "Cousin, did you see Dr. Lacey while he was in Frankfort?"

"No; I did not," answered Florence; "but I do hope he will be here tonight, for I am all impatient to see this lion who has turned all your heads."

A slight shade of displeasure pa.s.sed over Mabel's fine features, but quickly casting it off she said, "Why are you so anxious, Florence? Have you any designs on him? If you have, they will do you no good, for I have a prior claim, and you must not interfere."

"Dear me, how charmingly you look!" said Florence. "But, fair coz, do not be too sanguine. Suppose I should tell you that far off in old Kentuck, as the negroes say, there is a golden-haired little girl, who has-"

"Stop, stop," said Mabel. "You shall not tell me. I will not hear it."

At that instant the doorbell rang, and in a moment several young girls entered the dressing room, and in the chattering and laughing and fixing which followed, Mabel forgot what her cousin had been saying. After a time the young ladies descended to the s.p.a.cious drawing rooms, which were rapidly filling with the elite of the city.

Mabel's eye took in at a glance all the gentlemen, and she felt chagrined to find Dr. Lacey absent. "What if he should not come?" thought she. "The party would be a dreadfully dull affair to me." Some time after, she missed Florence and two or three other girls, and thinking they were in the parlor above, she went in search of them. She found them on the balcony not far from the gentlemen's dressing room, the windows of which were open. As she approached them, they called out, "Oh, here you are, Mabel! Florence is just going to tell us about Dr. Lacey's sweetheart."

"Dr. Lacey's sweetheart!" repeated Mabel. "Who is Dr. Lacey's sweetheart, pray?"

"Do not blush so, Mabel; we do not mean you," said Lida Gibson, a bright-eyed, witty girl, with a sprinkling of malice in her nature.

"Of course you do not mean me," said Mabel, laughingly. "But come, cousin; what of her?" And the young girls drew nearer to each other, and waited anxiously for Florence's story.

Little did they suspect that another individual, with flushed brow, compressed lip and beating heart was listening to hear tidings of her whom Florence had designated as his sweetheart. Dr. Lacey had entered the gentlemen's dressing room un.o.bserved. He heard the sound of merry voices on the balcony, and was about to step out and surprise the girls when he caught the sound of his own name coupled with that of f.a.n.n.y Middleton. His curiosity was aroused and he became a listener to the following conversation:

"Come, Florence," said Lida, "do not keep us in suspense any longer. Tell us whether she is black or white, fat or lean, rich or poor."

"But first," said Mabel, "tell us how you know she is anything to Dr.

Lacey."

"That is what I don't know," said Florence. "I am only speaking of what has been."