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There was nothing to do on the plantation so Telèsphore, having a few dollars in his pocket, thought he would go down and spend Sunday in the vicinity of Marksville.There was really nothing more to do in the vicinity of Marksville than in the neighborhood of hisown small farm; but Elvina would not be down there, nor Amaranthe, nor any of Ma'me Valtour'sdaughters to harass him with doubt, to torture him with indecision, to turn his very soul into aweather-cock for love's fair winds to play with.Telèsphore at twenty-eight had long felt the need of a wife. His home without one was like anempty temple in which there is no altar, no offering. So keenly did he realize the necessity that adozen times at least during the past year he had been on the point of proposing marriage to almostas many different young women of the neighborhood. Therein lay the difficulty, the trouble whichTelèsphore experienced in making up his mind. Elvina's eyes were beautiful and had often temptedhim to the verge of a declaration. But her skin was over swarthy for a wife; and her movements wereslow and heavy; he doubted she had Indian blood, and we all know what Indian blood is fortreachery. Amaranthe presented in her person none of these obstacles to matrimony. If her eyeswere not so handsome as Elvina's, her skin was fine, and being slender to a fault, she moved swiftlyabout her household affairs, or when she walked the country lanes in going to church or to thestore. Telèsphore had once reached the point of believing that Amaranthe would make him anexcellent wife. He had even started out one day with the intention of declaring himself, when, as thegod of chance would have it, Ma'me Valtour espied him passing in the road and enticed him to enterand partake of coffee and "baignés." He would have been a man of stone to have resisted, or tohave remained insensible to the charms and accomplishments of the Valtour girls. Finally there wasGanache's widow, seductive rather than handsome, with a good b