; Madame Pontalba and her unsuccessful suitor, John
McDonough; the three Girods, the two Graviers, or the lone Julian
Poydras, godfather of orphan girls. Besides these, and among them as
shining fractions of the community, the numerous representatives of the
not only noble, but noticeable and ubiquitous, family of Grandissime:
Grandissimes simple and Grandissimes compound; Brahmins, Mandarins and
Fusiliers. One, 'Polyte by name, a light, gay fellow, with classic
features, hair turning gray, is standing and conversing with this group
here by the mock-cannon inclosure of the grounds. Another, his cousin,
Charlie Mandarin, a tall, very slender, bronzed gentleman in a flannel
hunting-shirt and buckskin leggings, is walking, in moccasins, with a
sweet lady in whose tasteful attire feminine scrutiny, but such only,
might detect economy, but whose marked beauty of yesterday is retreating
and reappearing in the flock of children who are noisily running round
and round them, nominally in the care of three fat and venerable black
nurses. Another, yonder, Theophile Grandissime, is whipping his
stockings with his cane, a lithe youngster in the height of the fashion
(be it understood the fashion in New Orleans was five years or so behind
Paris), with a joyous, noble face, a merry tongue and giddy laugh, and a
confession of experiences which these pages, fortunately for their moral
tone, need not recount. All these were there and many others.

This throng, shifting like the fragments of colored glass in the
kaleidoscope, had its far-away interest to the contemplative Joseph. To
them he was of little interest, or none. Of the many passers, scarcely
an occasional one greeted him, and such only with an extremely polite
and silent dignity which seemed to him like saying something of this
sort: "Most noble alien, give you good-day--stay where you are.
Profoundly yours--"

Two men came through the Place d'Armes on conspicuously fine horses. One
it is not necessary to describe. The other, a man of perhaps
thirty-three or thirty-four years of age, was extremely handsome and
well dressed, the martial fashion of the day showing his tall and finely
knit figure to much advantage. He sat his horse with an uncommon grace,
and, as he rode beside his companion, spoke and gave ear by turns with
an easy dignity sufficient of itself to have attracted popular
observation. It was the apothecary's unknown friend. Frowenfeld noticed
them while they were y