ss in the summer air. A long line of steamboats
--white, patient animals--was tethered along the levee, and the Louisiana
presently swung in her bow toward a gap in this line, where a mass of
people was awaiting her arrival. Some invisible force lifted Eliphalet's
eyes to the upper deck, where they rested, as if by appointment, on the
trim figure of the young man in command of the Louisiana. He was very
young for the captain of a large New Orleans packet. When his lips moved,
something happened. Once he raised his voice, and a negro stevedore
rushed frantically aft, as if he had received the end of a
lightning-bolt. Admiration burst from the passengers, and one man cried
out Captain Brent's age--it was thirty-two.

Eliphalet snapped his teeth together. He was twenty-seven, and his
ambition actually hurt him at such times. After the boat was fast to the
landing stage he remained watching the captain, who was speaking a few
parting words to some passengers of fashion. The body-servants were
taking their luggage to the carriages. Mr. Hopper envied the captain his
free and vigorous speech, his ready jokes, and his hearty laugh. All the
rest he knew for his own--in times to come. The carriages, the trained
servants, the obsequiousness of the humbler passengers. For of such is
the Republic.

Then Eliphalet picked his way across the hot stones of the levee, pushing
hither and thither in the rough crowd of river men; dodging the mules on
the heavy drays, or making way for the carriages of the few people of
importance who arrived on the boat. If any recollections of a cool, white
farmhouse amongst barren New England hills disturbed his thoughts, this
is not recorded. He gained the mouth of a street between the low houses
which crowded on the broad river front. The black mud was thick under his
feet from an overnight shower, and already steaming in the sun. The brick
pavement was lumpy from much travel and near as dirty as the street.
Here, too, were drays blocking the way, and sweaty negro teamsters
swinging cowhides over the mules. The smell of many wares poured through
the open doors, mingling with the perspiration of the porters. On every
side of him were busy clerks, with their suspenders much in evidence, and
Eliphalet paused once or twice to listen to their talk. It was tinged
with that dialect he had heard, since leaving Cincinnati.

Turning a corner, Eliphalet came abruptly upon a prophecy. A great drove
of mules was c