You are not able to get a straight look into them, and if you could you would see only your own image cast back in pitiful miniature; but you turn away and feel, as you fortify yourself with an inward smile, that they know you, you man, through and through, like a little song.

And in turning, your sight is glad to rest again on the face of Honore's mother.

You see, this time, that she _is_ his mother, by a charm you had overlooked, a candid, serene and lovable smile.

It is the wonder of those who see that smile that she can ever be harsh.
The playful, mock-martial tread of the delicate Creole feet is all at once swallowed up by the sound of many heavier steps in the hall, and the fathers, grandfathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews of the great family come out, not a man of them that cannot, with a little care, keep on his feet.

Their descendants of the present day sip from shallower glasses and with less marked results.
The matrons, rising, offer the chief seat to the first comer, the great-grandsire--the oldest living Grandissime--Alcibiade, a shaken but unfallen monument of early colonial days, a browned and corrugated souvenir of De Vaudreuil's pomps, of O'Reilly's iron rule, of Galvez' brilliant wars--a man who had seen Bienville and Zephyr Grandissime.
With what splendor of manner Madame Fusilier de Grandissime offers, and he accepts, the place of honor! Before he sits down he pauses a moment to hear out the companion on whose arm he had been leaning.