The Crossing

f the Honec

, robbed alike from the yellow waters of the one and the pestilent moisture of the other. It would have been strange indeed if this capital of Louis

f the blue seas, high-hulled, their tracery of masts and spars shimmering in the heat: a full-rigged ocean packet from Spain, a barque and brigantine from the West Indies, a rakish slaver from Africa with her water-line dry, discharged but yesterday of a teeming horror of freight. I looked again upon the familiar rows of t

s rose the fine new Cathedral, built by the munificence of Don Andreas Almonaster, and beside that the many-w

said Monsieur Vigo; "let u

own keen-faced countrymen lounging about, mildly amused by the scene. We crossed the square, and with the courtesy of their race the people made way for us in the press; and we were no sooner placed ere the procession came out of the church. Flaming soldiers of the Governor's guard, two by two; sober, sandalled friars in brown, priests in their robes,-another batch of color; crosses

s glittering on his breast,-pillar of royalty and enemy to the Rights of Man! His eye was stern, his carriage erect, but I seemed to read in his careworn face the trials of three years in this moist capital. After the Governor, one by one, t

unpretentious house some three doors from the corner. Madame Gravois, elderly, wizened, primp in a starched cotton gown, opened the door herself, fell upon Monsieur Vigo in the Creole fashion; and within a quarter of an

the habits of the climate, and she retired for her siesta. I sought my room, almost suffocated by a heat which defies my pen to describe, a heat reeking with moisture sucked from the foul kennels of the city. I had felt nothing like it in my former visit to New Orleans. It seemed to bear down upon my brain, to clog the power of thought, to make me vacillating. Hitherto my reasoning had led me to seek Monsieur de St. Gré

estivity. Merry groups were gathered on the corners, songs and laughter mingled in the court-yards, billiard balls clicked in the cabarets. A fat, jolly little Frenchman,

ite maison en face." Smiling benignly at

house. Low, unpretentious, the latticed shutters of its two windows giving it but a scant air of privacy,-indeed, they were scarred by the raps of careless passers-by on the sidewalk. The two little battened doors, one step up, were closed. I rapped, waited, and rapped again. The musician across the street stopped his fiddl

o' want

me, for she spoke the diale

to see Mrs. Cli

closed

woman. She closed the door a little more, an

r. David Ritchie

ant's silence, th

wide enough for me to pass through. I found myself in a low-ceiled, darkened

c'lect you when you was at Temple Bow. Marse Dave, how you'se done growed!

ur mistres

agined, a discreet guardian indeed for the unfortunate. "She po'ly, Marse Dave, an' she ain' nebber leabe dis year house. Marse Dave," said Lindy earnestly, lowering her voice and taking a step closer to me, "I done reckon de Mi

?" I

n he was a bebby. I done cotch Mistis lookin' at it, an' she

I sai

m de you

ow, Lindy,"

y si

t you, Marse Dave,

ple sees no o

, but she speak English jes' like the Mistis. Dat's

ult," I

e mont's ergo, dis yer lady come en she des wheedled me ter let her in. She was de quality, Marse Dave, and I wa

s. Temple stood on the threshold, staring

said, "what h

ed at me. But I could not speak for

and her hand sought the door-

a little cry and swayed, and had I not taken h

eak?" She looked at Lindy and smiled. "It is because I am an old woman, Lindy," an

ors and redolent with the scent of flowers. A white shell walk divided the garden and ended at the door of a low outbuilding, from the c

she said. "Wher

he question stagger

know," I

en there in characters not to be mistaken. Sarah Temple, the beauty, was dead indeed. Th

e deceiving me. Tell me, tell me, for the love of God, who has brought me to bea

well as her. "Listen, Mrs. Temple." I cou

keeping him away? Have I not suffered enough? David, I canno

ght, to sit on the bench, an

pression changed again to a sad yearning, "you must hear me. And you must tr

iteously that I was n

st you," sh

her she was silent. "I saw him in Louisville a month ago, when I returned from a year's visit to Philadelphia." I could n

a calmness now that frightened m

ed; "when I would have sp

ned wonderment. "He was drunk-it is better than if h

not," I

ed her f

. Truth held me to the full, ludicrous tragedy of the tale, to the cheap character of my old Colonel's undertaking, to the incident of the drum, to the conversation in my room. Likewise, truth forbad

n will not get here?" she as

is mercifully best that it should not. The day may come," I added, for the sake of lea

ith a trace of her

n New Orleans?

olution came

I continued: "I have more to say. I am convinced that neither Nick nor you will be

housetop, from across the street, came the gay music of t

smiling, "I could not

ered. "You have the will. You

at me with a courage which wa

e," she said, rising with something of her old manner, "I must show y

uch thoughts in my mind, I listened unheeding to her talk. The place was formerly occupied by a shiftless fellow, a tailor; and the court, now a paradise, had been a rubbish heap. That orange tree which shaded the uneven doorway of the kitchen she had found here. Figs, pomegranates, magnolias; the c

d Antoinette, and now she read the question (perchance purposely put there) in my eyes. Her v

tural that he thinks me-I will not say what. I sent Antoinette away. She clung to me, she would not go, and I h

her? She is not m

asmines. Then she straightened and faced me, her voice shaken w

wer that. She bent ov

who comes to me on business, as you know. It was Mr. Clark who brought back Lindy on one of

Montméry?"

nce? Lindy thought that I would like to see her. David, it was a providential weakness, or curiosity, that prompted me to go into the front room, and then I saw why Lindy had opened the door to her. Who she is or what she is I do not know to this day. Who am I now that I should inquire? I know that she is a lady, that she has

ned, startled, and looked towards the house. I followed