blood in her veins! Yet Menou has threescore negroes and negresses, besides a whole colony of ebony children, and the two girls are not so ill to look at. Roses and lilies--especially Louise. Well, we will think about it. "Apropos!" said the Creole, as we were walking along a field path. "You have three thousand dollars with Gorings?" I nodded. "And eight thousand with Mr Richards?" "How do you know that, my dear M. Menou?" I must observe, by way of parenthesis, that I had lent these eight thousand dollars to Richards some five years previously; and although, on more than one occasion during that time, the money would have been of considerable use to me, I had been restrained from asking it back by my natural indolence and laziness of character, added to the nonsensical notion of generosity and devotion in friendship that I had picked out of waggon-loads of novels. Richards, I must observe, had never hinted at returning the money. I now felt rather vexed, I cannot exactly say why, at Menou's being acquainted with the fact of this debt, which I had fancied a secret between Richards and myself. "And how do you know that, my dear M. Menou?" Menou smiled at my question. "You forget," said he, "that I am only just returned from New Orleans. One hears and learns many things when one opens one's ears to the gossip of the _haut-ton_ of the capital." "Ha, ha!" said I, a little sarcastically, and glancing at the man's straw hat, and unbleached trousers and jacket; "Monsieur Menou--the plain and unsophisticated Monsieur Menou, also a _haut-ton_ man?" "My wife was a M----y; my grandfather was president of the Toulouse parliament," replied the Creole quietly, to my somewhat impertinent remark. I bowed. My suspicions concerning Indian blood were unfounded then. "And have my proceedings and follies really served as tea-table talk to the New Orleans' gossips?" said I. "Don't let that annoy you," replied Menou. "Let the world talk; and you, on your part, prove to it that you are a more sensible man than it takes you for. Will you put yourself for a while entirely under my guidance?" "Very willingly," said I. "And promise to abide by my advice." "I promise to do so." "Then," continued Menou, "you must let me have, to use as I think proper, eight out of the eleven thousand dollars which you have lying idle." "And Richards?" said I. "Can do without them better than you can. It is very well to be generous, but not to the extent of injuring yourself. Here is a receipt for the sum in question. I will account to you for its expenditure."