The afternoon she gave to two or three callers, notably to Mrs. Thorndyke-Smith, who was very pleasing every way, but in nothing more than in her praises of the Royal Street coterie. Next morning, in a hired car, she had Castanado and Mme. Dubroca, Beloiseau and Mme. Alexandre, not merely show but, as the ironworker said, pinching forefinger and thumb together in the air, "elucidate" to her, for hours, the _vieux carre_. The day's latter half brought Mlles. Corinne and Yvonne; but Aline--no. "She was coming till the laz' moment," the pair said, "and then she's so bewzy she 'ave to sen' us word, by 'Ector, 'tis impossib' to come--till maybe later. Go h-on, juz' we two." They sat and talked, and rose and talked, and--sweetly importuned--resumed seats and talked, of infant days and the old New Orleans they loved so well, unembarrassed by a maze of innocent anachronisms, and growingly sure that Aline would come. When at sunset they took leave Mrs. Chester, to their delight, followed to the sidewalk, drifted on by a corner or two, and even turned up Rampart Street, though without saying that it was by Rampart Street her son daily came--walked--from his office. It had two paved ways for general traffic, with a broad space between, where once, the sisters explained, had been the rampart's moat but now ran the electric cars! "You know what that is, rampart? Tha'z in the 'Star-Spangle' Banner' ab-oud that. And this high wall where we're passing, tha'z the Carmelite convent, and--ah! ad the last! Aline! Aline!" Also there was Cupid. The four encountered gayly. "Ah, not this time," Aline said. "I came only to meet my aunts; they had locked the gate! But I _will_ call, very soon." They walked up to the next corner, the sisters confusingly instructing Mrs. Chester how to take a returning street-car. Leaving them, she had just got safely across from sidewalk to car-track when Cupid came pattering after, to bid her hail only the car marked "Esplanade Belt." As he backed off--"Take care!" was the cry, but he sprang the wrong way and a hurrying jitney cast him yards distant, where he lay unconscious and bleeding. The packed street-car emptied. "No, he's alive," said one who lifted him, to the two jitney passengers, who pushed into the throng. "Arm broke', yes, but he's hurt worst in the head." There was an apothecary's shop in sight. They put him and the four ladies into the jitney and sent them there, and the world moved on. At the shop he came to, and presently, in the jitney again, he was blissfully aware of Geoffry Chester on the swift running-board, questioning his mother and Aline by turns. He listened with all his might. Neither the child nor his mistress had seen or heard the questioner since the afternoon he was locked out of the garden.