commended her trio of allies, and being rid of them she turned back to her prisoner, their erstwhile companion. Absinthe wrought its work on his meek and pliant spirit, and the shaking hand was nerved to do the woman's work. At her dictation, with such corrections as his better education suggested, two letters were draughted, and with these in her hand she went aloft. In fifteen minutes she returned, placed one of these letters in an envelope already addressed to Monsieur Armand Lascelles, No.--Rue Royale, the other she handed to Dawson. It was addressed in neat and delicate feminine hand to Colonel Braxton, Jackson Barracks. "Now, Dawson, ye can't see her this day, and she don't want ye till you can come over here sober. Off wid ye now to barracks. They're all out at inspection yet, and will be for an hour. Lay this wid the colonel's mail on his desk, and thin go you to your own. Come to me this afthernoon for more dhrink if ye can tell me what he said and did when he read it. No! no more liquor now. That'll brace ye till dinnertime, and more would make ye dhrunk." Miserably he plodded away down the levee, while she, his ruler, throwing on a huge, dirty white sun-bonnet, followed presently in his tracks, and "shadowed" him until she saw him safely reach the portals of the barracks after one or two fruitless scouts into wayside bars in hope of finding some one to treat or trust him to a drink. Then, retracing her steps a few blocks, she rang sharply at the lattice gate opening into a cool and shaded enclosure, beyond which could be seen the white-pillared veranda of a long, low, Southern homestead. A grinning negro boy answered the summons. "It's you, is it, Alphonse? Is your mistress at home?" "No; gone town,--_chez Madame d'Hervilly_." "Madame Devillease, is it? Very well; you skip to town wid that note and get it in your master's hands before the cathedral clock strikes twelve, or ye'll suffer. There's a car in t'ree minutes."