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George Washington Cable was an American novelist notable for the realism of his portrayals of Creole life in his native New Orleans, Louisiana. He has been called "the most important southern artist working in the late 19th century, as well as the first modern southern writer."
Next morning he saw her again.
He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street, and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next corner below, she turned into Royal, toward him, out of Conti, coming from Bourbon.
The same nine-year-old negro boy was at her side, as spotless in broad white collar and blue jacket as on the morning before, and carrying the same droll air of consecration, awe, and responsibility. The young man envied him.
Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he had encountered this fair stranger and her urchin escort, abruptly, as they were making the same turn they now repeated, and all in a flash had wondered who might be this lovely apparition. Of such patrician beauty, such elegance of form and bearing, such witchery of simple attire, and such un-Italian yet Latin type, in this antique Creole, modernly Italianized quarter--who and what, so early in the day, down here among the shops, where so meagre a remnant of the old high life clung on in these balconied upper stories--who, what, whence, whither, and wherefore?
In that flash of time she had passed, and the very liveliness of his interest, combined with the urchin's consecrated awe--not to mention his own mortifying remembrance of one or two other-day lapses from the austerities of the old street--restrained him from a backward glance until he could cross the way as if to enter the great, white, lately completed court-house. Then both she and her satellite had vanished.
He turned again, but not to enter the building. His watch read but half past eight, and his first errand of the day, unless seeing her had been his first, was to go one square farther on, for a look at the wreckers tearing down the old Hotel St. Louis. As he turned, a man neat of dress and well beyond middle age made him a suave gesture.
"Sir, if you please. You are, I think, Mr. Chester, notary public and attorney at law?"
"That is my name and trade, sir." Evidently Mr. Geoffry Chester was also an American, a Southerner.
"Pardon," said his detainer, "I have only my business card." He tendered it: "Marcel Castanado, Masques et Costumes, No. 312, rue Royale, entre Bienville et Conti."
"I diz-ire your advice," he continued, "on a very small matter neither notarial, neither of the law. Yet I must pay you for that, if you can make your charge as--as small as the matter."
The young lawyer's own matters were at a juncture where a fee was a godsend, yet he replied:
"If your matter is not of the law I can make you no charge."
The costumer shrugged: "Pardon, in that case I must seek elsewhere." He would have moved on, but Chester asked:
"What kind of advice do you want if not legal?"
"Literary."
The young man smiled: "Why, I'm not literary."
"I think yes. You know Ovide Landry? Black man? Secon'-han' books, Chartres Street, just yonder?"
"Yes, very pleasantly, for I love old books."
"Yes, and old buildings, and their histories. I know. You are now going down, as I have just been, to see again the construction of that old dome they are dim-olishing yonder, of the once state-house, previously Hotel St. Louis. I know. Twice a day you pass my shop. I am compelled to see, what Ovide also has told me, that, like me and my wife, you have a passion for the poétique and the pittoresque!"
"Yes," Chester laughed, "but that's my limit. I've never written a line for print----"
"This writing is done, since fifty years."
"I've never passed literary judgment on a written page and don't suppose I ever shall."
"The judgment is passed. The value of the article is pronounced great--by an expert amateur."
"SHE?" the youth silently asked himself. He spoke: "Why, then what advice do you still want--how to find a publisher?"
"No, any publisher will jump at that. But how to so nig-otiate that he shall not be the lion and we the lamb!"
Chester smiled again: "Why, if that's the point--" he mused. The hope came again that this unusual shopman and his wish had something to do with her.
"If that's the advice you want," he resumed, "I think we might construe it as legal, though worth at the most a mere notarial fee."
"And contingent on--?" the costumer prompted.
"Contingent, yes, on the author's success."
"Sir! I am not the author of a manuscript fifty years old!"
"Well, then, on the holder's success. You can agree to that, can't you?"
"'Tis agreed. You are my counsel. When will you see the manuscript?"
"Whenever you choose to leave it with me."
The costumer's smile was firm: "Sir, I cannot permit that to pass from my hand."
"Oh! then have a copy typed for me."
The Creole soliloquized: "That would be expensive." Then to Chester: "Sir, I will tell you; to-night come at our parlor, over the shop. I will read you that!" "Shall we be alone?" asked Chester, hoping his client would say no.
"Only excepting my"--a tender brightness--"my wife!" Then a shade of regret: "We are without children, me and my wife."
His wife. H'mm! She? That amazing one who had vanished within a few yards of his bazaar of "masques et costumes"? Though to Chester New Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim purse kept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grew rich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to stand behind counters. Yet no such plight could he imagine of that bewildering young--young luminary who, this second time, so out of time, had gleamed on him from mystery's cloud. His earlier hope came a third time: "Excepting only your wife, you say? Why not also your amateur expert?"
"I am sorry, but"--the Latin shrug--"that is--that is not possible."
"Have I ever seen your wife? She's not a tallish, slender young-----?"
"No, my wife is neither. She's never in the street or shop. She has no longer the cap-acity. She's become so extraordinarily un-slender that the only way she can come down-stair' is backward. You'll see. Well,"--he waved--"till then--ah, a word: my close bargaining--I must explain you that--in confidence. 'Tis because my wife and me we are anxious to get every picayune we can get for the owners--of that manuscript."
Chester thought to be shrewd: "Oh! is she hard up? the owner?"
"The owners are three," Castanado calmly said, "and two dip-end on the earnings of a third." He bowed himself away.
A few hours later Chester received from him a note begging indefinite postponement of the evening appointment. Mme. Castanado had fever and probably la grippe.
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
True stories are not often good art. The relations and experiences of real men and women rarely fall in such symmetrical order as to make an artistic whole. Until they have had such treatment as we give stone in the quarry or gems in the rough they seldom group themselves with that harmony of values and brilliant unity of interest that result when art comes in—not so much to transcend nature as to make nature transcend herself. Yet I have learned to believe that good stories happen oftener than once I thought they did. Within the last few years there have dropped into my hands by one accident or another a number of these natural crystals, whose charms, never the same in any two, are in each and all enough at least to warn off all tampering of the fictionist. Happily, moreover, without being necessary one to another, they yet have a coherent sequence, and follow one another like the days of a week. They are mine only by right of discovery. From various necessities of the case I am sometimes the story-teller, and sometimes, in the reader's interest, have to abridge; but I add no fact and trim naught of value away. Here are no unconfessed "restorations," not one. In time, place, circumstance, in every essential feature, I give them as I got them—strange stories that truly happened, all partly, some wholly, in Louisiana.
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Set in sultry New Orleans during the Civil War, Kincaid's Battery tells the story of a Confederate army artillery unit, Hilary Kincaid's Battery—or “the ladies' men," as they are more teasingly known. The men's various romances with the women of the Big Easy, among other adventures, examine themes of hope, peace, and the nature of war.
"There will be no falling in love, we will only act as a loving couple when we are in public, we will share a room to make it believable, but no intimacy, touching is off-limits. We'll only have sex once a month, and that's solely to produce an heir. You won't interfere in my business, and I won't interfere in yours. You will be my wife in every sense and you will not be involved with any other man," he said, arrogance seeping from every word. I watch his mouth move, I'm not ready to fall in love with any man, especially not one as arrogant and egoistic as him. I can handle acting as a loving couple, and as for intimacy once a month. I can agree to that just to satisfy my sexual cravings with no strings attached. "Where can I sign?" I asked since I had nothing to lose. *** Nadine's wedding dreams turned to nightmares when she caught her sister and fiancé cheating! With a secret recording, she's ready for revenge. But then mysterious billionaire Logan West offers a deal: A Contract Marriage to take down her ex's empire. But what Nadine doesn't know is her life is getting complicated as she takes her chance to get revenge or risks everything for a chance at love?"
Madison had always believed that she would marry Colten. She spent her youth admiring him from afar, dreaming of their future life together. But Colten was always indifferent to her, and when he abandoned her at a time when she needed him most, she finally realized that he never loved her. With renewed resolve and a thirst for revenge, Madison left. Endless possibilities lay ahead, but Colten was no longer part of her plans. Colten rushed to her place in a panic. "Madison, please come back to me. I’ll give you everything!" It was his powerful uncle who answered the door. "She's my woman now."
In her previous life, Kimberly endured the betrayal of her husband, the cruel machinations of an evil woman, and the endless tyranny of her in-laws. It culminated in the bankruptcy of her family, and ultimately, her death. After being reborn, she resolved to seek retribution against those who had wronged her, and ensure her family's prosperity. To her shock, the most unattainable man from her past suddenly set his sights on her. "You may have overlooked me before, but I shall capture your heart this time around."
After three secretive years of marriage, Eliana never met her enigmatic husband until she was served with divorce papers and learned of his extravagant pursuit of another. She snapped back to reality and secured a divorce. Thereafter, Eliana unveiled her various personas: an esteemed doctor, legendary secret agent, master hacker, celebrated designer, adept race car driver, and distinguished scientist. As her diverse talents became known, her ex-husband was consumed by remorse. Desperately, he pleaded, "Eliana, give me another chance! All my properties, even my life, are yours."
In the previous life, Maggie Johnson was so cowardly, gullible and stupid that she was coaxed by her fiance and stepsister and then broke her legs and lost everything including her fortune, love and even life. However, she was so lucky that she was reborn in the year before everything happened. Since her life restarted, how could she repeat a previous tragedy? Therefore, in this life, she took the opportunity to improve herself and take revenge on the ones who had ever insulted her. Facing the people who had humiliated her previously, she became smart and experienced to break their frames and tricks that had caused her to hurt in the previous life. Finally, no one could stop her pace to amaze the world any more.
Yelena discovered that she wasn't her parents' biological child. After seeing through their ploy to trade her as a pawn in a business deal, she was sent away to her barren birthplace. There, she stumbled upon her true origins—a lineage of historic opulence. Her real family showered her with love and adoration. In the face of her so-called sister's envy, Yelena conquered every adversity and took her revenge, all while showcasing her talents. She soon caught the attention of the city's most eligible bachelor. He cornered Yelena and pinned her against the wall. “It's time to reveal your true identity, darling.”