ur George, in his fifty years'
stay, had seen tricked away from dull colonial Esaus by their blue-eyed
brethren of the North. Nearer by she looked upon the forlornly silent
region of lowly dwellings, neglected by legislation and shunned by all
lovers of comfort, that once had been the smiling fields of her own
grandsire's broad plantation; and but a little way off, trudging across
the marshy commons, her eye caught sight of 'Sieur George following the
sunset out upon the prairies to find a night's rest in the high grass.

She turned at once, gathered the skirt of her pink calico uniform, and,
watching her steps through her tears, descended the steep winding-stair
to her frequent kneeling-place under the fragrant candles of the
chapel-altar in Mother Nativity's asylum.

'Sieur George is houseless. He cannot find the orphan. Mother Nativity
seems to know nothing of her. If he could find her now, and could get
from her the use of ten dollars for but three days, he knows a
combination which would repair all the past; it could not fail,
he--thinks. But he cannot find her, and the letters he writes--all
containing the one scheme--disappear in the mail-box, and there's an
end.

MADAME DELICIEUSE

Just adjoining the old Cafe de Poesie on the corner, stood the little
one-story, yellow-washed tenement of Dr. Mossy, with its two glass doors
protected by batten shutters, and its low, weed-grown tile roof sloping
out over the sidewalk. You were very likely to find the Doctor in, for
he was a great student and rather negligent of his business--as
business. He was a small, sedate, Creole gentleman of thirty or more,
with a young-old face and manner that provoked instant admiration. He
would receive you--be you who you may--in a mild, candid manner, looking
into your face with his deep blue eyes, and re-assuring you with a
modest, amiable smile, very sweet and rare on a man's mouth.

To be frank, the Doctor's little establishment was dusty and
disorderly--very. It was curious to see the jars, and jars, and jars. In
them were serpents and hideous fishes and precious specimens of many
sorts. There were stuffed birds on broken perches; and dried lizards,
and eels, and little alligators, and old skulls with their crowns sawed
off, and ten thousand odd scraps of writing-paper strewn with crumbs of
lonely lunches, and interspersed with long-lost spatulas and rust-eaten
lancets.

All New Orleans, at least all Creole New Orlea