But there was a something in the air, a
something not tangible, but mysterious, subtle. You could catch
an indescribable whiff of it in your inner senses, by the
half-eager, furtive glances that the small crowd cast at La
Juanita.
"Gar, gar, le bateau!" said one dark-tressed mother to the
wide-eyed baby. "Et, oui," she added, in an undertone to her
companion. "Voila, La Juanita!"
La Juanita, you must know, was the pride of Mandeville, the
adored, the admired of all, with her petite, half-Spanish,
half-French beauty. Whether rocking in the shade of the
Cherokee-rose-covered gallery of Grandpere Colomes' big house,
her fair face bonnet-shaded, her dainty hands gloved to keep the
sun from too close an acquaintance, or splashing the spray from
the bow of her little pirogue, or fluffing her skirts about her
tiny feet on the pier, she was the pet and ward of Mandeville, as
it were, La Juanita Alvarez, since Madame Alvarez was a widow,
and Grandpere Colomes was strict and stern.
And now La Juanita had set her small foot down with a passionate
stamp before Grandpere Colomes' very face, and tossed her black
curls about her wilful head, and said she would go to the pier
this evening to meet her Mercer. All Mandeville knew this, and
cast its furtive glances alternately at La Juanita with two big
pink spots in her cheeks, and at the entrance to the pier,
expecting Grandpere Colomes and a scene.
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