igh, floating past; comparing its own inertia--if a city
can be presumed capable of such edifying consciousness!--with the
aspect of the busy levee, where cotton bales, sugar hogsheads,
molasses casks, tobacco, hemp and other staple articles of the South,
formed, as it were, a bulwark, or fortification of peace, for the
habitations behind it. Such was the external appearance--suggestive
of commerce--of that little center whose social and bohemian life was
yet more interesting than its mercantile features.

At that period the city boasted of its Addison of letters--since
forgotten; its Feu-de-joie, the peerless dancer, whose beauty had
fired the Duke Gambade to that extravagant conduct which made the
recipient of those marked attentions the talk of the town; its Roscius
of the drama; its irresistible _ingenue_, the lovely, little
Fantoccini; and its theatrical carpet-knight, M. Grimacier, whose
intrigue with the stately and, heretofore, saintly Madame Etalage had,
it was said later, much to do with the unhappy taking-off of that
ostentatious and haughty lady. It had Mlle. Affettuoso, songstress,
with, it is true, an occasional break in her trill; and, last, but not
least, that general friend of mankind, more puissant, powerful and
necessary than all the nightingales, butterflies, or men of
letters--who, nevertheless, are well enough in their places!--Tortier,
the only Tortier, who carried the _art de cuisine_ to ravishing
perfection, whose ragouts were sonnets in sauce and whose fricassees
nothing less than idyls!

Following the strollers' experiences with short engagements and
improvised theaters, there was solace in the appearance of the city of
cream and honey, and the players, assembled on the boiler deck,
regarded the thriving port with mingled feelings as they drew nearer.
Susan began forthwith to dream of conquests--a swarthy Mexican, the
owner of an opal mine; a prince from Brazil; a hidalgo, exile, or any
other notable among the cosmopolitan people. Adonis bethought himself
of dusky beauties, waiting in their carriages at the stage entrance;
sighing for him, languishing for him; whirling him away to a supper
room--and Paradise! Regretfully the wiry old lady reverted to the time
when she and her first husband had visited this Paris of the South,
and, with a deep sigh, paid brief tribute to the memory of conjugal
felicity.

Constance's eyes were grave as they rested upon the city where she
would either triumph