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laugh at her for being scared. She looked around, wondering if he was here, but all she could see was a mob of strangers and merchandise. Of course he was not here. He was back in the forest, and it might be days before he even knew she had arrived.
    Then, jumping over hogsheads and ordering Negroes out of the way, came a figure that she recognized with amazement as that of staid-minded Walter Purcell of Connecticut. But Mr. Purcell was burnt brown as an Indian and his coat was of apple-green satin and his breeches were buckled with silver. He shouted and waved to them, leaping over a wheelbarrow to grasp Mark Sheramy’s hand with delighted welcome.
    Judith took a step backward and stared at him with sudden secret glee. It was really true, then. Nobody could bring New England to Louisiana. Somewhere on the river they all crossed a dividing line, and Philip belonged on this side of it.
    The wagon bounced along a trail through the woods, here and there passing an indigo clearing with a cabin or sometimes a more pretentious house of pink clay-and-moss plaster, till they came to the home of Walter Purcell. The estate, he said, was called Lynhaven. His house was bright pink, built with a passage down the middle and five rooms on each side, and in front a white wooden porch that Mr. Purcell called a gallery, explaining when they asked him that the Creole word was galérie and in Louisiana the English language was enriching itself with a great many Anglicized Creole words. Mark asked dubiously if one had much association with the Creoles. But certainly, said Mr. Purcell. He himself had a wife from New Orleans. Charming people, these colonial French.
    Half a dozen Negroes ran out of the house to meet them, and while they jabbered and unloaded the boxes a small black-haired girl came out on the gallery. She looked like a doll with her gown of pink dimity and little curls dancing on her neck, and so young that Judith was surprised when Mr. Purcell said, “My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Gervaise, my friends from Connecticut.”
    Gervaise smiled and curtseyed, her little hands holding back her panniers. “You are so welcome,” she said in a soft exotic accent, and with as little fluttering as if receiving four guests was the most ordinary of occurrences. “Every day for a week my husband has looked for you at the wharfs.” She gestured toward the bowing Negro man holding back the door. “You will step inside?”
    As she followed her mother indoors Judith glanced sideways at Gervaise. She had never seen any girl who looked so self-possessed and cityfied. Judith wondered if she wore those curls and ruffles every day. She must; there was no way for her to have known in advance when the Sheramys were coming and so be dressed up in their honor. Gervaise was speaking to her husband.
    “Walter, the chambers at the left back are for monsieur and madame and the young gentleman. I will conduct the young lady.” She tucked her hand into Judith’s, paused to give orders half in French and half in English to a cluster of black attendants, and led Judith into a pink-walled room with long windows reaching to the floor and a high narrow bed draped with a mosquito bar. A Negro girl whom Gervaise called Titine came after them carrying a wooden tub and a jug of hot water.
    “You’re being very nice to us,” Judith ventured as she untied the strings of her sunbonnet. “I hope we aren’t going to be a lot of trouble.”
    “But certainly not.” Gervaise laughed a little as though in surprise. “I like having guests. Walter is out half the day, and one gets bored with only servants and a baby for company.”
    “Have you really got a baby?” Judith exclaimed.
    “Yes, a little girl. Her name is Babette. What makes you so astonished?”
    “Why—you look like such a little girl yourself.”
    Gervaise laughed again. “Because I’m so tiny, I suppose. But I’m seventeen. I’ve been married three years.” She put her hand on the latch.