Riding through a patch of wood, Clarisse's saddle became ungirted, and she and Alcée dismounted to readjust it. For the twentieth time he asked her what had happened at home. "But, Clarisse, w'at is it? Is it a misfortune?" "Ah Dieu sait! It's only something that happen' to me." "To you!" "I saw you go away las' night, Alcée, with those saddle-bags," she said, haltingly, striving to arrange something about the saddle, "an' I made Bruce tell me. He said you had gone to the ball, an' wouldn' be home for weeks an' weeks. I thought, Alcée--maybe you were going to--to Assumption. I got wild. An' then I knew if you did n't come back, _now_, to-night, I could n't stan' it,--again." She had her face hidden in her arm that she was resting against the saddle when she said that. He began to wonder if this meant love. But she had to tell him so, before he believed it. And when she told him, he thought the face of the Universe was changed--just like Bobinôt. Was it last week the cyclone had well-nigh ruined him? The cyclone seemed a huge joke, now. It was he, then, who, an hour ago was kissing little Calixta's ear and whispering nonsense into it. Calixta was like a myth, now. The one, only, great reality in the world was Clarisse standing before him, telling him that she loved him. In the distance they heard the rapid discharge of pistol-shots; but it did not disturb them. They knew it was only the negro musicians who had gone into the yard to fire their pistols into the air, as the custom is, and to announce "_le bal est fini_." LA BELLE ZORAÏDE. The summer night was hot and still; not a ripple of air swept over the marais. Yonder, across Bayou St. John, lights twinkled here and there in the darkness, and in the dark sky above a few stars were blinking. A lugger that had come out of the lake was moving with slow, lazy motion down the bayou. A man in the boat was singing a song. The notes of the song came faintly to the ears of old Manna Loulou, herself as black as the night, who had gone out upon the gallery to open the shutters wide. Something in the refrain reminded the woman of an old, half-forgotten Creole romance, and she began to sing it low to herself while she threw the shutters open:-- "Lisett' to kité la plaine, Mo perdi bonhair à moué; Ziés à moué semblé fontaine, Dépi mo pa miré toué."