"You turned your canoe over in the canal?" Mama asked me with surprise. She knew how expert I was at poling a pirogue.

"No, Mama. I hit a rock while we were in the small pirogue and I fell out."

She was nonplussed for a moment, her eyes shifting from Pierre to me.

"Go change," she ordered me. She turned back to Pierre. "I have some clean, dry clothes for you to put on, monsieur. One moment."

"Please, don't go to any trouble," Pierre said, but Mama was already off to fetch the clothing. Pierre gazed at me and shrugged.

"Gabrielle!" Mama called from the stairway.

"Coming, Mama." I hurried up behind her.

"How did such a thing happen, Gabrielle?" she demanded in a loud whisper.

"Just the way he described, Mama. I wasn't paying attention and I poled us right into a rock. I lost balance and fell overboard."

"How did he get soaked, too?"

"He jumped in to help me."

"He jumped in?"

"Oui, Mama."

She stared at me a moment and then shook her head. "Change your clothes," she said.

By the time I came downstairs, Mama had Pierre dressed in Daddy's best pair of slacks and one of his best shirts. He was barefoot while Mama dried his shoes and socks, pants and shirt, on the stove. His underpants were hanging on the line in the sun. He looked up at me from the plank table in the kitchen. He had an impish grin and appeared to be positively enjoying every moment of my disaster. Before him on the table was a mug of steaming Cajun coffee and a bowl of gumbo.

"Our unexpected swim has made me ravenously hungry," he explained. "And I am glad of that because this is absolutely the most delicious shrimp gumbo I've ever eaten. So you see . . . at the end of every storm, there is some sort of rainbow."

I started to smile, but Mama raised her eyebrows.

"Sit down," she directed, "and get some nourishment in your stomach, too. Honestly, Gabrielle, how could you take Monsieur Dumas into the swamp to show him a pond filled with alligators and snapping turtles and snakes and then be so careless as to fall out of your canoe?"

"I didn't take him to any pond filled with alligators, Mama."

Pierre's smile widened. Just as I sat, we heard a car horn. "Customers," Mama said.

"I'll get my own gumbo, Mama. Thank you."

She gave us a once-over, her eyes filled with suspicion and reprimand, before hurrying out to the stand.

"Your mother's wonderful," Pierre said. "The sort of woman who takes command. I was afraid to say no to anything."

"When you leave, she will bawl me out for endangering a rich gentleman from New Orleans," I told him, and dipped into the black cast-iron pot to ladle out some gumbo for myself. I, too, was suddenly starving.

"I eat in the finest restaurants in New Orleans, but I don't think I ever enjoyed a meal more," he said, gazing around the small kitchen. "My cook has a kitchen to rival the best restaurants, and your mother does so much with so little."

"Where do you live in New Orleans, monsieur?" "Please, call me Pierre, Gabrielle. I live in what's known as the Garden District."

"What is it?"

"The Garden District? Well, it began as the area for the rich Americans when New Orleans became part of the U.S.A. These people were not accepted by the French Quarter Creoles, so they developed their own lavish neighborhood. My grandfather got our property in a foreclosure and decided we weren't above living there. Elegant gardens visible from the street give this section of the city its name. Tourists visit, but there are no buses permitted. There are some famous houses in the Garden District, such as the Payne-Strachan House. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, died there in 1889.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like a tour guide," he said, laughing at his own enthusiasm.

"Is your house very big?"

He nodded.

"Is it bigger than any house you've seen in the bayou?" He nodded again.

"How big is your house?" I demanded, and he laughed. "It's a two-story Grecian with two galeries in front. I think there are fourteen or fifteen rooms."

"You think? You live in a house so big you're not sure of how many rooms?"

"It's fifteen," he said. Then he paused. "Maybe sixteen. I don't know if I should count the cook's quarters as one room or two. And of course, there's the ballroom."

"Ballroom? In a house?"

"We have some rooms that haven't been used for anything yet. If I count them, too . . ."

"Mon Dieu! Is there much land around it?"

"We have some outbuildings, a stable, a pool, and a tennis court. I never measured it, but I bet it's over an acre of land."

"You have a stable in the city?" He nodded. "Are you the richest family in New Orleans?" I wondered, wide-eyed.

He laughed. "Hardly. In this section there are a number of large estates like ours."

"How tiny and poor our shack must seem to you," I said, gazing down as ashamedly as someone caught with holes in the soles of her shoes.

"But how large and rich it is because you live in it," he replied. I blushed and continued eating, feeling his eyes constantly on me.

"Perhaps one day you will visit New Orleans," he said. "Daddy says he will take us as soon as he earns enough money to take us in style."

"Of course. New Orleans is a city to which you should go in style," Pierre said. "As for earning enough money . . . I expect he will have my father for a steady customer. He is impressed with your father's knowledge of the swamp."

"My daddy is the best Cajun guide in the bayou. When I was little, he taught me about the animals and he showed me how to pole a pirogue."

"Did you fall out then?" Pierre asked with a wide grin. "No, monsieur. I'm sorry. Really, I don't know how that happened. I . . ."

"I'm only teasing you, Gabrielle." He reached across the table to put his hand over mine. "I can't think of when my heart felt more filled with happiness than it is at this moment," he added. His words were so sincere and yet so overwhelming, they took my breath away.

"I must help Mama," I said, my voice cracking.

"Fine. I'll help too."

"You, monsieur? Selling our wares to the tourists?" I started to laugh at the prospect.

"I happen to be a crackerjack salesman," he said, feigning indignation. "Why, just last week I sold a building worth nearly two million."

"Dollars?"

"Oui," he said, smiling at my look of amazement. "I wish Daphne was as impressed and as appreciative," he added, and then regretted it quickly.

"Daphne is your wife?"

"Oui," he said.

I rose to put my bowl in the sink. He did the same and for a moment, stood right behind me, so close I could feel his breath on my hair. My heart thumped. His hands went to my waist.

"Gabrielle, I feel something truly magical with you. I can't deny or ignore it."

"You must, monsieur. Please," I said, afraid to turn.

"I must see you again, that's what I must do, even if it's only to chat. Surely you will turn my grayest days to blue sky. And," he said, forcing me to turn so I faced him, "I will fill your heart with happiness. I promise."

I started to shake my head, but he brought his lips to mine to kiss me gently.

I broke away. "I must help Mama," I muttered, and charged out the front door.

Mama had two couples at the stand, the women going through our linens and towels, the men off to the side smoking and talking.

"Gabrielle, fetch those pillowcases we wove day before yesterday, please," she said the moment she heard me approaching.

"Oui, Mama."

Pierre stepped out on the galerie as I hurried back and into the house, passing him without a word. When I returned to the stand, Pierre was conversing with the men, getting them interested in buying jars of swamp insects.

"They'll make great conversation pieces on your desks in your offices. Not something easily acquired in the city, n'est-ce pas?" he told them.

They agreed and bought two jars apiece to add to the items their wives had taken. When they left, Mama thanked Pierre for making the sale.

"It's nothing, madame, but it was more fun than being in the canoe hunting," he added. Mama smiled. He asked her about some of her herbs and listened as she described how to use them and what they would cure. I could see he was very impressed with her. He decided to buy a variety of herbs himself.

"We have a cook who's very much into this sort of thing herself," he explained. He flashed a smile at me. Mama returned to the house to bring out some other items, happy at how well the day's sales were going.

Pierre sat in the rickety old cypress chair Daddy had made years ago and, at my request, described his mansion in New Orleans in greater detail. I sat on the grass at his feet. Nearby, curious gray squirrels squinted and waited to see what we were about and if there would be any crumbs.

"You have beautiful wildflowers here, but on our estate, our garden walls enclose huge banana trees and drip with purple bugle vine. In the morning I wake to the scent of blooming camellias and magnolia, and the streets of the district are under a canopy of oak."

"It does sound like you live in a beautiful place, too."

"It's beautiful and quiet, but minutes away by streetcar is the bustling city," he said with visible excitement in his eyes. I listened, enchanted as he described the art galleries, the museums, the grand restaurants, and the famous French Quarter where the jazz musicians played and people sat in coffee stalls drinking café au lait.

"The French Quarter is really more Spanish than French, you know. All of the buildings that date from colonial times are Spanish in design and architecture. And the so-called French market is Spanish from foundation to chimney pots."