The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brother Clerks, by Xariffa

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Title: The Brother Clerks
A Tale of New-Orleans

Author: Xariffa

Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18958]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

BROTHER CLERKS;

A TALE OF NEW-ORLEANS.

BY XARIFFA.

NEW-YORK:
DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU-STREET.
1857.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857,
BY DERBY & JACKSON,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for
Southern District of New-York.

THE BROTHER CLERKS.

CHAPTER I.

There, stranger lips shall give the greeting,
There, stranger eyes shall mark the meeting;
While the bosom, sad and lone,
Turns its heavy heart-beats home.

A September sun was casting its parting rays far over the dull waters of
the Mississippi, as a steamer, with steady course, ploughed her way
through the thick waves and "rounded to" at the thronged and busy wharf
of New Orleans.

Upon her deck, apart from all other passengers, stood two youths gazing
with anxious eyes on the vast city spread out before them. The taller
and elder of the two, bore upon his brow the flush of his twentieth
summer. His figure seemed already to have gained its full proportions,
and in his carriage and tone of voice there was all the pliant grace of
youth, combined with manhood's strength and ease. His hair was of that
purplish black so rarely seen save in the raven's wing, or the exquisite
portraits of the old masters. The full broad forehead, shadowed by its
dark locks, the clear black eye, the hue of health upon the check, and
the smile upon the red lips as they parted over the snowy teeth, formed
a picture of fresh and manly beauty over which the wing of this wicked
world had as yet never hung darkly.

The younger was a mere boy; and stood beside his brother in that autumn
hour, like a pure memory of othe