"Or," ventured Mme. Alexandre, "of that editorial board all together." M. De l'Isle shook his head and then a stiff finger: "I tell you! They are sicretly inquiring Thorndyke-Smith--lit'ry magnet--to fine out if we are truz'-worthy! And tha'z the miztake we did---not sen'ing the photograph of Mlle. Aline ad the biggening. But tha'z not yet too late; we can wire them from firz' drug-store, 'Suspen' judgment! Portrait of authorezz coming!'" All eyes, even Cupid's, turned to her. She was shaking her head. "No," she responded, with a smile as lovely, to Chester's fancy, as it was final; as final, to the two aunts' conviction, as it was lovely. "No photograph would be convincing," Chester began to plead, but stopped for the aunts. "Oh, impossible!" they cried. "That wou'n' be de-corouz!" "Ladies an' gentlemen," said M. Castanado, "we are on a joy-ride." "An' we 'ave reason!" his wife exclaimed. "Biccause hope!" Mme. Alexandre put in. "Yes!" said Dubroca. "That manuscrip' is not allone receive'; sinze more than a week 'tis _rittain'_, whiles they dillib-rate; and the chateau what dillib-rate'--you know, eh? M'sieu' De l'Isle, I move you we go h-on." They went, the De l'Isle car and then Scipion's, back to St. Charles Avenue, and turned again up-town. On the rearmost seat---- "Why so silent?" Aline inquired of Chester. "Because so content," he said, "except when I think of the book." "The half-book?" "Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet. "Though with the _vieux carre_ full of them?" "Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!" "Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character were--what would say?" "I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but you get it, don't you?" The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these _vieux carre_ stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'" "There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said. "Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the _vieux carre_ is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'" Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the _vieux carre_ was unlike, but so like the rest of the world. "Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around Mme. Castanado. "You and I," Chester said, "are going back to your father's story. You said, the other day, his life was quiet, richer within than without." "Yes. Ah, yes; so that while of the inside I cannot tell half, of the outside there is almost nothing to tell."