commodious "cotton-float" had not quite yet come into use, and Poydras
and other streets did not so vie with Tchoupitoulas in importance as
they do now, will recall a scene of commercial hurly-burly that inspired
much pardonable vanity in the breast of the utilitarian citizen. Drays,
drays, drays! Not the light New York things; but big, heavy, solid
affairs, many of them drawn by two tall mules harnessed tandem. Drays
by threes and by dozens, drays in opposing phalanxes, drays in long
processions, drays with all imaginable kinds of burden; cotton in bales,
piled as high as the omnibuses; leaf tobacco in huge hogsheads; cases of
linens and silks; stacks of raw-hides; crates of cabbages; bales of
prints and of hay; interlocked heaps of blue and red ploughs; bags of
coffee, and spices, and corn; bales of bagging; barrels, casks, and
tierces; whisky, pork, onions, oats, bacon, garlic, molasses, and other
delicacies; rice, sugar,--what was there not? Wines of France and Spain
in pipes, in baskets, in hampers, in octaves; queensware from England;
cheeses, like cart-wheels, from Switzerland; almonds, lemons, raisins,
olives, boxes of citron, casks of chains; specie from Vera Cruz; cries
of drivers, cracking of whips, rumble of wheels, tremble of earth,
frequent gorge and stoppage. It seemed an idle tale to say that any one
could be lacking bread and raiment. "We are a great city," said the
patient foot-passengers, waiting long on street corners for opportunity
to cross the way.

On one of these corners paused Richling. He had not found employment,
but you could not read that in his face; as well as he knew himself, he
had come forward into the world prepared amiably and patiently to be, to
do, to suffer anything, provided it was not wrong or ignominious. He did
not see that even this is not enough in this rough world; nothing had
yet taught him that one must often gently suffer rudeness and wrong. As
to what constitutes ignominy he had a very young man's--and, shall we
add? a very American--idea. He could not have believed, had he been
told, how many establishments he had passed by, omitting to apply in
them for employment. He little dreamed he had been too select. He had
entered not into any house of the Samaritans, to use a figure; much
less, to speak literally, had he gone to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. Mary, hiding away in uncomfortable quarters a short stone's
throw from Madame Zenobie's, little imagined that, i