g so misty. I am more than thirty-seven; and sometimes I feel
weary. I grieve for Dorothy. She has wound herself with tenderness
around my heart. But less and less can she share life with me.

I go to the Place d'Armes to see the equestrian statue of Jackson which
has been erected here since my last visit. It is now called Jackson
Square. The St. Louis Cathedral has been largely rebuilt. I wander
through the Cabildo again, visit the old cemeteries, read the names of
the dead. The scent of strange blossoms affects me poignantly. I stroll
through the parks, and I visit the life in the French quarter.

Dorothy can drive with me at times, but not for long. Our boy distresses
her; and a governess keeps him away much of the time. There are memories
all about me. La Fayette has been here. He was in this very Cabildo. The
old hero of New Orleans, who blessed Dorothy and me, walked these
streets. Now he is long gone. Clay is gone, Webster, Calhoun. The
country is at a pause. Hawthorne's friend is President. And Douglas is
in St. Petersburg, riding a horse grotesquely, and bringing his western
ways into the very presence of the Czar.

Sometimes I wonder if Zoe is not alive, if some kind of consummate trick
was not played on me. Fortescue did not kill her. He did not seem to me
like a man who would commit murder. Why would any one murder Zoe? Might
she not have been sold for her loveliness to some man desiring a
mistress? No! Zoe would write to me if she were living. Yet I went
everywhere in New Orleans searching for Zoe.

Often I visited the St. Louis hotel, for there young quadroons and
octoroons on sale, tastefully dressed, were inspected by men with all
the critical and amorous interest with which a roue would look upon the
object of his desire. Their eyes were gazed into, their hair stroked,
their limbs caressed and outlined, their busts stared at and touched.
Men went mad over these beauties.

A story went the rounds that a young man in Virginia fell in love with
an octoroon slave while on a visit to a country house. The girl had gone
to her mistress for protection, and received it, against the man's
advances. But he had returned, saying that he could not live without the
girl. The mistress had sold her to him for $1500. Did Zoe meet that
fate, and not violence?

So I searched the cafes, the places of amusement, the bagnios for Zoe.
And into every octoroon's face in which I saw a resemblance to Zoe I
peered, hoping tha