ay,--and dropped his eyes
again upon his pen. Narcisse gave him one long black look, and silently
went out.

But a sweet complacency could not stay long away from the young man's
breast. The world was too beautiful; the white, hot sky above was in
such fine harmony with his puffed lawn shirt-bosom and his white linen
pantaloons, bulging at the thighs and tapering at the ankles, and at the
corner of Canal and Royal streets he met so many members of the Yancey
Guards and Southern Guards and Chalmette Guards and Union Guards and
Lane Dragoons and Breckenridge Guards and Douglas Rangers and Everett
Knights, and had the pleasant trouble of stepping aside and yielding the
pavement to the far-spreading crinoline. Oh, life was one scintillating
cluster breast-pin of ecstasies! And there was another thing,--General
William Walker's filibusters! Royal street, St. Charles, the rotunda of
the St. Charles Hotel, were full of them.

It made Dr. Sevier both sad and fierce to see what hold their lawless
enterprise took upon the youth of the city. Not that any great number
were drawn into the movement, least of all Narcisse; but it captivated
their interest and sympathy, and heightened the general unrest, when
calmness was what every thoughtful man saw to be the country's greatest
need.

An incident to illustrate the Doctor's state of mind.

It occurred one evening in the St. Charles rotunda. He saw some
citizens of high standing preparing to drink at the bar with a group of
broad-hatted men, whose bronzed foreheads and general out-of-door mien
hinted rather ostentatiously of Honduras and Ruatan Island. As he passed
close to them one of the citizens faced him blandly, and unexpectedly
took his hand, but quickly let it go again. The rest only glanced at
the Doctor, and drew nearer to the bar.

"I trust you're not unwell, Doctor," said the sociable one, with
something of a smile, and something of a frown, at the tall physician's
gloomy brow.

"I am well, sir."

"I--didn't know," said the man again, throwing an aggressive resentment
into his tone; "you seemed preoccupied."

"I was," replied the Doctor, returning his glance with so keen an eye
that the man smiled again, appeasingly. "I was thinking how barely
skin-deep civilization is."

The man ha-ha'd artificially, stepping backward as he said, "That's so!"
He looked after the departing Doctor an instant and then joined his
companions.

Richling had a touch of this contagion