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Mouths dropped, eyes widened.

"Well, who is then?" Mrs. Livaudis asked. "Or can't you say?"

"It's someone who doesn't live here, Mrs. Livaudis. It's someone from New Orleans."

The women eyed each other, their faces now skeptical.

"You're not doing yourself or your baby any good to protect the father from his responsibilities, Ruby," Mrs. Thirbodeaux said. "Your grandmere wouldn't let you do such a thing, I assure you."

"I know she wouldn't," I said, smiling as I imagined Grandmere Catherine giving me a similar lecture.

"Then let us go with you and help you make the young man bear his share," Mrs. Livaudis said quickly. "If there is an ounce of decency in him, he'll do the right thing."

"I'm telling you the truth. He doesn't live here," I said as sincerely as I could, but they shook their heads and looked at me with pity in their eyes.

"We just want you to know, Ruby, that when it comes time to do what's right, we'll be with you," Mrs. Thirbodeaux said. "Do you want a doctor or a traiteur? There is a traiteur living just outside Morgan City who will come to see you."

The thought of going to some other traiteur besides Grandmere Catherine bothered me.

"I'll see the doctor," I told them.

"The bills should be paid by you know who," Mrs. Livaudis commented, shifting her eyes toward the others, who all nodded in firm agreement.

"I'll be all right," I promised them.

They left, convinced that what they believed was the truth. Paul had been right, of course. He knew our people better than I did. But this was my burden now, something I would have to live with and deal with on my own. Of course, I thought about Beau and wondered what, if anything, he had heard about me.

As if she heard my thoughts, Gisselle sent me a letter through Paul.

"This came this afternoon," he said, bringing the letter over. I was in the kitchen preparing a shrimp gumbo. I wiped my hands and sat down.

"My sister wrote to me?" I smiled with surprise and opened the envelope. Paul stood in the doorway, watching m

e read.

Dear Ruby,

Bet you never dreamed you'd receive a letter from me. The longest thing I ever wrote was that dumb English report on the old English poets, and even that was half written for me by Vicki.

Anyway, I found Paul's old letters in your closet when Daphne told me to go into your room and take anything I wanted before she gave the rest away to the needy. She had Martha Wood strip down your room and shut it up. She said as far as she was concerned, you never existed. Of course, she still has the problem of the will to face. I overheard her and Bruce talking about it one night and he told her to get you out of the will. It would take a lot of legal maneuvering and might upset their own apple cart, so for the time being, you're still a Dumas.

I know you're probably wondering why I'm writing from New Orleans. Well, guess what? Daphne gave in and let me come home and return to school here. Know why? Word of your pregnancy spread around the school. I wonder how? Anyway, it became disgraceful and Daphne couldn't stand that, especially when I started calling her night and day to tell her what the girls were saying, how the teachers were looking at me, what Mrs. Ironwood thought. So she gave in and let me come home, where your secret is well kept.

Daphne's told everyone you just ran off to the bayou to live with your Cajuns because you missed them so much. Of course, people wonder about Beau.

"I bet you're wondering about him, huh?" she wrote at the bottom of the page, making it seem as if she wouldn't tell me anymore.

Just like Gisselle, I thought, teasing me even in a letter. I turned the paper over and found the rest.

Beau is still in France, where he is doing very well. Monsieur and Madame Andreas are telling everyone about his accomplishments and how he will be going to college there too. And it seems he is seeing a very wealthy French girl, someone whose family lineage goes back to Louis Napoleon.

I got a letter from him last month in which he begged me to tell him anything at all about you. I just wrote today and told him I don't know where you are. I told him I'm trying to find you by writing to one of our Cajun relatives, but I heard you might have gotten married in one of those Cajun marriage ceremonies on a raft in the swamp with snakes and spiders at your feet.

Oh, I forgot. Before I left Greenwood, I had a visitor at the dorm. I bet you know who: Louis. He was very nice and very handsome. He was heartbroken to hear you had a baby coming and you had run off to live in the swamps with your Cajuns. He had a sheet of music he had hoped to send you, so I promised him if I ever find out where he should mail it, I would let him know.

But promises are made to be broken, aren't they?

Just joking. I don't know if I will ever hear from you again or if this letter will get to you. I hope it does and I hope you write back. It's sort of nice to have a notorious sister. I'm having loads of fun making up different stories about you.