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gallery hanging high above her head made her feel small and insignificant. A part of her doubted that she would ever feel that she belonged to such grandeur, that it was comfortable and ordinary.
    It was a fairly new house, she knew, built only three years before with a portion of the profits from several bountiful years in the cane fields. There was a smell of mortar rising from the brick floor beneath her feet and a suspicion of the scent of new lumber lingering still under the overhanging roof. The sun gleamed on the line of white pillars marching across the front of the house and cast trembling shadow patterns of the oak leaves onto the floor.
    Elizabeth raised her face to the touch of the sun. It was a beautiful day, a day to be at peace with the world and yourself. The thought brought a wry smile to her mouth. She pushed away from the pillar and moved on down the gallery.
    The wide colonnaded galleries that bounded the house on three sides invited strolling. They gave the house an open, airy look that detracted from its square bulk. They also shaded the inside rooms from the force of the semi-tropical sun. They remained cool and comfortable throughout the long summers, with the help of the ceilings and the thick plastered walls. The shade of the oaks, a natural grove of mixed live oaks, white, and red oaks, contributed to the aura of coolness. They stretched away on all sides, the oaks, old, huge, with blue lichen clinging to the bark of their wide spread arms. They wore the old rags of Spanish moss, hanging in tatters from them, with pride.
    The light breeze moving through the trees swayed the gray moss back and forth and brought with it the heady fragrance of sun-warm sweet olive. Elizabeth stopped, looking around her for the shrub. She had discovered it growing at the corner of the house near the back wall when the sound of a voice came to her through the nearest open window.
    “I am sorry, Madame, if I disturb you at your correspondence, but I must speak with you. I cannot see you alone now that the child and his nurse have been brought into your room.” There was a note of reproach in the French maid’s voice.
    The rustle of silk, as if someone turned, could be heard, and then Grand’mere’s voice came sharply. “Well, Denise?”
    “My room, Madame. My eyes never closed the whole night long. It is an impossibility for me to relax. I am with that one so much. It is too much to ask that I sacrifice my nights also. You must not ask this of me!”
    “Why not, pray?” The old lady’s words were clipped, even.
    “Madame knows why. It is inhuman to ask. Please have some consideration for my feelings.”
    “Are your feelings more to be considered than the welfare of my great-grandson? No. Give me no more whining. You have been with me a number of years, Denise, and I would not like to dispense with your services, but if you will enact to me such tragedies then I must think of dismissing you.”
    “Oh, no, Madame! I could not bear—”
    “I will give you a character and send you back to the city in my carriage. You cannot expect more than this. I dare say you will find a new situation in a month or so.”
    “How can you say so, after the years I have served you? New Orleans will be full of the yellow fever in a few more weeks, and—and I am no longer familiar with the new modes from Paris. I would so much prefer to stay here.” There were tears in Denise’s voice, and Elizabeth found herself in sympathy with the haughty maid now being so humbled.
    “Tears? All this for my sake, Denise? I think not. No, for your new position you must stipulate that you want to go to someone enroute to White Sulphur Springs or one of the other resorts for the summer to escape the fever.” Grand’mere’s voice went relentlessly on. “And as for being no longer comme il faut with fashions, I suggest you seek another old lady to bully, someone fat and dull who will not care to be so modish.”
    “Madame!”
    “Or