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When the war began, there stood on Cote Joyeuse an irove of majestic live-oaks

surrounded it

Thirty years later, only the thick walls were standing, with the dull

red brick showing here and there through a e round pillars were intact; so to so of hall and portico There had been no ho the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse Everyone knew that, as they

knew it had cost Philippe Valmet sixty thousand dollars to build, away

back in 1840 No one was in danger of forgetting that fact, so long as

his daughter Pelagie survived She was a queenly, white-haired woh she was unie's eyes; a child of

thirty-five

The two lived alone in a three-roomed cabin, almost within the shadow of

the ruin They lived for a dreaie's dream, which was

to rebuild the old home

It would be pitiful to tell how their days were spent to accomplish this

end; how the dollars had been saved for thirty years and the picayunes

hoarded; and yet, not half enough gathered! But Ma'aie felt sure

of twenty years of life before her, and counted upon as many more for

her sister And what could not come to pass in twenty--in forty--years?

Often, of pleasant afternoons, the tould drink their black coffee,