the frequent and numerous guests at her sumptuous board
these young girls seemed comparatively unanimated, if not actually
unhappy. Not so with their mother. To do her full share in the upper
circles of good society, to dispense the pleasures of drawing-room and
dining-room with generous frequency and captivating amiability, was the
eager pursuit of a lady who nevertheless kept the management of her money
affairs, real estate, and slaves mainly in her own hands. Of slaves she
had ten, and housed most of them in the tall narrow wing that we have
already noticed.

We need not recount again the state of society about her at that time. The
description of it given by the young German duke whom we quoted without
date in the story of "Salome Muller" belongs exactly to this period.
Grymes stood at the top and front of things. John Slidell was already
shining beside him. They were co-members of the Elkin Club, then in its
glory. It was trying energetically to see what incredible quantities of
Madeira it could drink. Judge Mazereau was "avocat-general" and was being
lampooned by the imbecile wit of the singers and dancers of the calinda in
Congo Square. The tree-planted levee was still populous on summer evenings
with promenaders and loungers. The quadroon caste was in its dying
splendor, still threatening the moral destruction of private society, and
hated--as only woman can hate enemies of the hearthstone--by the proud,
fair ladies of the Creole pure-blood, among whom Madame Lalaurie shone
brilliantly. Her elegant house, filled with "furniture of the most costly
description,"--says the "New Orleans Bee" of a date which we shall come
to,--stood central in the swirl of "downtown" gayety, public and private.
From Royal into Hospital street, across Circus street--rue de la
Cirque--that was a good way to get into Bayou Road, white, almost as
snow, with its smooth, silent pavement of powdered shells. This road
followed the slow, clear meanderings of Bayou St. Jean, from red-roofed
and embowered suburb St. Jean to the lake, the swamp of giant, grizzly
bearded cypresses hugging it all the way, and the whole five miles teeming
with gay, swift carriages, some filled with smokers, others with ladies
and children, the finest equipage of all being, as you may recollect, that
of John Fitz Miller. He was at that very time master of Salome Muller, and
of "several others fairer than Salome." He belongs in the present story
only here in this land