anchored steamer lately
razeed and now being fitted for a cloud of canvas on three lofty masts
instead of the two small sticks she had been content with while she
brought plantains, guava jelly, coffee, and cigars from Havana. The
_Sumter_ she was to be, and was designed to deliver some of the many
agile counter-thrusts we should have to make against that "blockade" for
which the Yankee frigates were already hovering off Ship Island. So said
the Lieutenant, but Constance explained to him (Captain Mandeville
having explained to her) what a farce that blockade was going to be.

How good were these long breaths of air off the sea marshes, enlivened
by the speed of the craft! But how unpopulous the harbor! What a crowd
of steamboats were laid up along the "Algiers" shore, and of Morgan's
Texas steamers, that huddled, with boilers cold, under Slaughter-House
Point, while all the dry-docks stood empty. How bare the ship wharves;
hardly a score of vessels along the miles of city front. About as many
more, the lieutenant said, were at the river's mouth waiting to put to
sea, but the towboats were all up here being turned into gunboats or
awaiting letters of marque and reprisal in order to nab those very ships
the moment they should reach good salt water. Constance and Miranda
tingled to tell him of their brave Flora's investment, but dared not, it
was such a secret!

On a quarter of the deck where they stood alone, what a striking pair
were Flora and Irby as side by side they faced the ruffling air, softly
discussing matters alien to the gliding scene and giving it only a
dissimulative show of attention. Now with her parasol he pointed to the
sunlight in the tree tops of a river grove where it gilded the windows
of the Ursulines' Convent.

"Hum!" playfully murmured Kincaid to Anna, "he motions as naturally as
if that was what they were talking about."

"It's a lovely picture," argued Anna.

"Miss Anna, when a fellow's trying to read the book of his fate he
doesn't care for the pictures."

"How do you know that's what he's doing?"

"He's always doing it!" laughed Hilary.

The word was truer than he meant. The Irby-value of things was all that
ever seriously engaged the ever serious cousin. Just now his eyes had
left the shore, where Flora's lingered, and he was speaking of Kincaid.
"I see," he said, "what you think: that although no one of these
things--uncle Brodnax's nonsense, Greenleaf's claims, Hilary's own
preach