On her wedding-eve Euphemia came down clothed in the lilac gown, cream-white roses on her breast, and the string of pearls around her fair throat. Her family were puzzled and indignant, for that gown somehow seemed linked with the memory of her sweetheart, who had died in disgrace. It was a strange whim to wear it the night before her marriage. But the evening passed merrily enough, and at eleven o’clock the bedroom candles were lighted, and she went up the stairs to her room with a smile on her lips, the lilac gown felling around her in soft, shimmering folds. It was the last time family, lover or friends ever looked upon Euphemia D’Esterre. The next morning her room was empty. The pearls lay on the dressing-table with the withered roses, and the lilac gown hung over the back of a chair; but bride, bridal-gown and veil were gone. They looked into the oratory, thinking that she had gone in there to breathe her last virginal prayer before the simple altar, where she had knelt so many times; but the light shining dimly through the narrow, veiled window, revealed the sacred place silent, untenanted. They sought her everywhere; they spent money lavishly, but to no purpose. She had vanished forever. Time and the fortunes of war had wrought many changes in the D’Esterre family. My mother, a pale, melancholy young widow, and I—another Euphemia D’Esterre—and Uncle Peter were the last of the family. And we had drifted away from Louisiana to an old mansion on the Chattahoochee, in Middle Georgia. Across the river lay the idle, sleepy old town of Magnoliaville, with its shady streets, ivy-covered churches, and inn, rarely visited by a traveler and stranger. We had some old silver, my grandaunt’s picture, the pearls, and the lilac gown. These were all the real treasures we had gathered from the wreck of family fortunes; and Uncle Peter was the last living link between us and the past. He was a very old man, his black face shriveled into a network of wrinkles, his shoulders bent, his head white, almost, as snow. He possessed great pride and dignity. His long life had been spent in the services of the D’Esterres, and he refused to leave them when freedom was proclaimed. "Tu late fo’ dat now. I praise de Lawd I gwine die a free man, but I b’long dis fambly tu long tu leave ’em now. Let all go dat feels lack dey wanter, ole Peter gwine stay tel ’e dies; yes, tel ’e dies." And he did stay, and was the favorite playfellow and companion of my childhood. "Yo’s de las’, Miss Phemy, honey, de las’ o’ dem all, and yo’s nuff lack Miss Euphemy tu ’a’ been ’er twin. Lawd, but dis is er mighty strange worl’—mighty strange," he would often say, shaking his white head. He seemed to feel a certain responsibility and care toward me as the last of the family.