I refer to the Rose of Vermilionville, the Pearl of the Parish, the loveliest love and fairest fair that ever wore the shining name of Beausoleil. She's got to change it to Tarbox, Claude. Before yon sun has run its course again, I'm going to ask her for the second time. I've just begun asking, Claude; I'm going to keep it up till she says yes." "She's not yondah!" snarled Claude, with the frown and growl of a mastiff. "She's gone to de city." Mr. Tarbox gazed a moment in blank amazement. Then he slowly lifted his hat from his head, expanded his eyes, drew a long slow groan, turned slowly half around, let the inhalation go in a long keen whistle, and cried: "Oh! taste! taste! Who's got the taste? What do you take me for? Who _are_ you talking about? That little monkey? Why, man alive, it's the mother I'm after. Ha, ha, ha!" If Claude said any thing in reply, I cannot imagine what it was. Mr. Tarbox had a right to his opinion and taste, if taste it could be called, and Claude was helpless to resent it, even in words; but for hours afterward he execrated his offender's stupidity, little guessing that Mr. Tarbox, in a neighboring chamber, alone and in his night-robe, was bending, smiting his thigh in silent merriment, and whispering to himself: "He thinks I'm an ass! He thinks I'm an ass! He can't see that I was simply investigating him!" CHAPTER XI. HE ASKS HER AGAIN. Claude and his father left the next day,--Saturday. Only the author of the A. of U. I. knew whither they were gone. As they were going he said very privately to Claude: "I'll be with you day after to-morrow. You can't be ready for me before then, and you and your father can take Sunday to look around, and kind o' see the city. But don't go into the down-town part; you'll not like it; nothing but narrow streets and old buildings with histories to 'em, and gardens hid away inside of 'em, and damp archways, and pagan-looking females who can't talk English, peeping out over balconies that offer to drop down on you, and then don't keep their word; every thing old-timey, and Frenchy, and Spanishy; unprogressive--you wouldn't like it. Go up-town. That's American. It's new and fresh. There you'll find beautiful mansions, mostly frame, it's true, but made to look like stone, you know. There you'll see wealth! There you'll get the broad daylight-- 'The merry, merry sunshine, that makes the heart so gay.' See? Yes, and Monday we'll meet at Jones's, 17 Tchoupitoulas Street; all right; I'll be on hand. But to-day and to-morrow--'Alabama'--'here I rest.' I feel constrained"--he laid his hand upon his heart, closed one eye, and whispered--"to stay. I would fain spend the sabbath in sweet Vermilionville. You get my idea?"