New Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles put
on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose;
the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich
sunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar of
last year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing the
caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the
filling of the river.
How high that river was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and
spun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift,--and how near
shore it came! Men were out day and night, watching the levee. On windy
nights even the old Colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with
occupation and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white arm
over the levee's top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast,
and, as the summer drifted in, the water sunk down into its banks and
looked quite incapable of harm.
On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel Jean Albert
Henri Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for revery, slipped the
custody of his feminine rulers and sought the crown of the levee, where
it was his wont to promenade.
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