ose," replied the visitor, "there is a more delightful
climate in the world."

"Ah-h-h!"--both ladies at once, in a low, gracious tone of
acknowledgment.

"I thing Louisiana is a paradize-me!" said Aurora. "W'ere you goin' fin'
sudge a h-air?" She respired a sample of it. "W'ere you goin' fin' sudge
a so ridge groun'? De weed' in my bag yard is twenny-five feet 'igh!"

"Ah! maman!"

"Twenty-six!" said Aurora, correcting herself. "W'ere you fin' sudge a
reever lag dad Mississippi? _On dit_," she said, turning to Clotilde,
"_que ses eaux ont la propriete de contribuer meme a multiplier l'espece
humaine_--ha, ha, ha!"

Clotilde turned away an unmoved countenance to hear Frowenfeld.

Frowenfeld had contracted a habit of falling into meditation whenever
the French language left him out of the conversation.

"Yes," he said, breaking a contemplative pause, "the climate is _too_
comfortable and the soil too rich,--though I do not think it is entirely
on their account that the people who enjoy them are so sadly in arrears
to the civilized world." He blushed with the fear that his talk was
bookish, and felt grateful to Clotilde for seeming to understand
his speech.

"W'ad you fin' de rizzon is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?" she asked.

"I do not wish to philosophize," he answered.

"_Mais_, go hon." "_Mais_, go ahade," said both ladies, settling
themselves.

"It is largely owing," exclaimed Frowenfeld, with sudden fervor, "to a
defective organization of society, which keeps this community, and will
continue to keep it for an indefinite time to come, entirely unprepared
and disinclined to follow the course of modern thought."

"Of coze," murmured Aurora, who had lost her bearings almost at the
first word.

"One great general subject of thought now is human rights,--universal
human rights. The entire literature of the world is becoming tinctured
with contradictions of the dogmas upon which society in this section is
built. Human rights is, of all subjects, the one upon which this
community is most violently determined to hear no discussion. It has
pronounced that slavery and caste are right, and sealed up the whole
subject. What, then, will they do with the world's literature? They will
coldly decline to look at it, and will become, more and more as the
world moves on, a comparatively illiterate people."

"Bud, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Clotilde, as Frowenfeld paused--Aurora
was stunned to silence,--"de Unitee State' goin' p