NEW ORLEANS LIFE AND NEW ORLEANS LADIES.
From these chapters all about men I return with pleasure to my young
lady, rebel though she is. Before she had been twenty-four hours in New
Orleans she discovered that it was by no means so delightful a place as
of old, and she had become quite indignant at the federals, to whom she
attributed all this gloom and desolation. Why not? Adam and Eve were
well enough until the angel of the Lord drove them out of Paradise. The
felon has no unusual troubles, so far as he can see, except those which
are raised for him by the malignity of judges and the sheriff. Miss
Ravenel was informed by the few citizens whom she met, that New Orleans
was doing bravely until the United States Government illegally blocked
up the river, and then piratically seized the city, frightening away its
inhabitants and paralyzing its business and nullifying its prosperity.
One old gentleman assured her that Farragut and Butler had behaved in
the most unconstitutional manner. At all events somebody had spoiled the
gayety of the place, and she was quite miserable and even pettish about
it.
"Isn't it dreadful!" she said, bursting into tears as she threw herself
into the arms of her aunt, Mrs. Larue, who, occupying the next house,
had rushed in to receive the restored exile.
She had few sympathies with this relation, and never before felt a
desire to overflow into her bosom; but any face which had been familiar
to her in the happy by-gone times was a passport to her sympathies in
this hour of affliction.
"C'est effrayant," replied Mrs. Larue. "But you are out of fashion to
weep. We have given over that feminine weakness, _ma chère_. That
fountain is dry. The inhumanities of these Yankee Vandals have driven us
into a despair too profound for tears. We do not flatter Beast Butler
with a sob."
Although she talked so strongly she did not seem more than half in
earnest. A half smile lurked around her lips of deep rose-color, and her
bright, almond-shaped black eyes sparkled with interest rather than with
passion. By the way, she was not a venerable personage, and not properly
Lillie's aunt, but only the widow of the late Mrs. Ravenel's brother,
not more than thirty-three years of age and still decidedly pretty. Her
complexion was dark, pale and a little too thick, but it was relieved by
the jet black of her regular eye-brows and of her masses of wavy hair.
Her face was oval, her nose, straight, her lips thin but nicely modeled,
her chin little and dimpled; her expression was generally gay and
coquettish, but amazingly variable and capable of running through a vast
gamut of sentiments, including affection, melancholy and piety. Though
short she was well built, with a deep, healthy chest, splendid arms and
finely turned ankles. She did not strike a careless observer as
handsome, but she bore close examination with advantage. The Doctor
instinctively suspected her; did not think her a safe woman to have
about, although he could allege no overtly wicked act against her; and
had brought up Lillie to be shy of her society. Nevertheless it was
impossible just now to keep her at a distance, for he would probably be
much away from home, and it was necessary to leave his daughter with
some one.
In politics, if not in other things, Mrs. Larue was as double-faced as
Janus. To undoubted secessionists she talked bitterly, coarsely,
scandalously against the northerners. If advisable she could go on about
Picayune Butler, Beast Butler, Traitor Farragut, Vandal Yankees,
wooden-nutmeg heroes, mudsills, nasty tinkers, nigger-worshippers,
amalgamationists, &c. &c. from nine o'clock in the morning when she got
up, till midnight when she went to bed. At the same time she could call
in a quiet way on the mayor or the commanding General to wheedle
protection out of them by playing her fine eyes and smiling and
flattering. Knowing the bad social repute of the Ravenels as Unionists,
she would not invite them into her own roomy house; but she was pleased
to have them in their own dwelling next door, because they might at a
pinch serve her as friends at the Butler court. On the principle of
justice to Satan, I must say that she was no fair sample of the proud
and stiff-necked slaveholding aristocracy of Louisiana. Neither was she
one of the patriotic and puritan few who shared the Doctor's sympathies
and principles. As she came of an old French Creole family, and her
husband had been a lawyer of note and an ultra southern politician, she
belonged, like the Ravenels, to the patrician order of New Orleans, only
that she was counted among the Soulé set, while her relatives had gone
over to the Barker faction. She had not been reduced to beggary by the
advent of the Yankees; her estate was not in the now worthless
investments of negroes, plantations, steamboats, or railroads, but in
bank stock; and the New Orleans banks, though robbed of their specie by
the flying Lovell, still made their paper pass and commanded a market
for their shares. But Mrs. Larue was disturbed lest she might in some
unforeseen manner follow the general rush to ruin; and thus, in respect
to the Vandal invaders, she was at once a little timorous and a little
savage.
The conversation between niece and youthful aunt was interrupted by a
call from Mrs. and Miss Langdon, two stern, thin, pale ladies in black,
without hoops, highly aristocratic and inexorably rebellious. They
started when they saw the young lady; then recovered themselves and
looked on her with unacquainted eyes. Miss Larue made haste, smiling
inwardly, to introduce her cousin Miss Ravenel.
Ah, indeed, Miss Ravenel! They remembered having met Miss Ravenel
formerly. But really they had not expected to see her in New Orleans.
They supposed that she had taken up her residence at the north with her
father.
Lillie trembled with mortification and colored with anger. She felt with
a shock that sentence of social ostracism had been passed upon her
because of her father's fidelity to the Union. Was this the reward that
her love for her native city, her defence of Louisiana in the midst of
Yankee-land, had deserved? Was she to be ignored, cut, satirized,
because she was her father's daughter? She rebelled in spirit against
such injustice and cruelty, and remained silent, simply expressing her
feelings by a haughty bow. She disdained to enter upon any self-defence;
she perceived that she could not, without passing judgment upon her much
adored papa; and finally she knew that she was too tremulous to speak
with good effect. The Langdons and Mrs. Larue proceeded to discuss
affairs political; metaphorically tying Beast Butler to a flaming stake
and performing a scalp dance around it, making a drinking cup of his
skull, quaffing from it refreshing draughts of Yankee blood. Lillie
remembered that, disagreeably loyal as the New Boston ladies were, she
had not heard from their lips any such conversational atrocities. She
did not sympathize much when Mrs. Langdon entered on a lyrical recital
of her own wrongs and sorrows. She was sorry, indeed, to hear that young
Fred Langdon had been killed at Fort Jackson; but then the mother
expressed such a squaw-like fury for revenge as quite shocked and rather
disgusted our heroine; and moreover she could not forget how coolly she
had been treated merely because she was her dear father's daughter. She
actually felt inclined to laugh satirically when the two visitors
proceeded to relate jointly and with a species of solemn ferocity how
they had that morning snubbed a Yankee officer.
"The brute got up and offered us his seat in the cars. I didn't look at
him. Neither of us looked at him. I said--we both said--'We accept
nothing from Yankees.' I remained--we both remained--standing."
Such was the mild substance of the narrative, but it was horrible in the
telling, with fierce little hisses and glares, sticking out from it like
quills of the fretful porcupine. Miss Ravenel did not sympathize with
the conduct of the fair snubbers, and I fear also that she desired to
make them feel uncomfortable.
"Really," she observed, "I think it was right civil in him to give up
his seat. I didn't know that they were so polite. I thought they treated
the citizens with all sorts of indignities."
To this the Langdons vouchsafed no reply except by rising and taking
their departure.
"Good-day, Miss Ravenel," they said. "So surprised ever to have seen you
in New Orleans again!"
Nor did they ask her to visit them, as they very urgently did Mrs.
Larue. It seemed likely to Lillie that she would not find life in New
Orleans so pleasant as she had expected. Half her old friends had
disappeared, and the other half had turned to enemies. She was to be cut
in the street, to be glared at in church, to be sneered at in the
parlor, to be put on the defensive, to be obliged to fight for herself
and her father. Her temper rose at the thought of such undeserved
hardness, and she felt that if it continued long she should turn loyal
for very spite.
Doctor Ravenel, returning from his interview with Colburne, met the
Langdon ladies in the hall, and, although they hardly nodded, waited on
them to the outer door with his habitual politeness. Lillie caught a
glimpse of this from the parlor, and was infuriated by their incivility
and his lack of resentment.
"Didn't they speak to you, papa?" she cried, running to him. "Then I
would have let them find their own way out. What are you so patient
for?"
"My dear, I am merely following the Christian example set me by these
low Yankees whom we all hate so," said papa, smiling. "I have seen a
couple of officers shamefully insulted to-day by a woman who calls
herself a lady. They returned not a word, not even a look of
retaliation."
"Yes, but--" replied Lillie, and after a moment's hesitation, concluded,
"I wouldn't stand it."
"We must have some consideration, too, for people who have lost
relatives, lost property, lost all, however their folly may have
deserved punishment."
"Havn't _we_ lost property?" snapped the young lady.
"Do you ask for the sake of argument, or for information?"
"Well--I should really like to know--yes, for information," said Lillie,
deciding to give up the argument, which was likely to be perplexing to a
person who had feelings on both sides.
"Our railroad property," stated the Doctor, "won't be worth much until
it is recovered from the hands of the rebels."
"But that is nearly all our property."
"Except this house."
"Yes, except the house. But how are we to live in the house without
money?"
"My dear, let us trust God to provide. I hope to be so guided as to
discover something to do. I have found a friend to-day. Captain Colburne
will be here this evening."
"Oh! will he?" said the young lady, blushing with pleasure.
It would be delightful to see any amicable visage in this city of
enemies; and moreover she had never disputed that Captain Colburne,
though a Yankee, was gentlemanly and agreeable; she had even admitted
that he was handsome, though not so handsome as Colonel Carter. Mrs.
Larue was also gratified at the prospect of a male visitor. As Sam
Weller might have phrased it, had he known the lady, a man was Mrs.
Larue's "particular wanity." The kitchen department of the Ravenels not
being yet organized, they dined that day with their relative. The meal
over, they went to their own house, Lillie to attend to housekeeping
duties, and the Doctor to forget all trouble in a box of minerals.
Lillie's last words to Mrs. Larue had been, "You must spend the evening
with us. This Captain Colburne is right pleasant."
"Is he? We will bring him over to the right side. When he gives up the
blue uniform for the grey I shall adore him."
"I don't think he will change his coat easily."
In her own house she continued to think of the Captain's coat, and then
of another coat, the same in color, but with two rows of buttons.
"Who did you see out, papa?" she asked presently.
"Who did I see out? Mr. Colburne, as I told you."
"Nobody else, papa?"
"I don't recollect," he said absent-mindedly, as he settled himself to a
microscopic contemplation of a bit of ore.
"Don't wrinkle up your forehead so. I wish you wouldn't. It makes you
look old enough to have come over with Christopher Columbus."
It was a part of her adoration of her father that she could not bear to
see in him the least symptoms of increasing age.
"I don't think that I saw a single old acquaintance," said the Doctor,
rubbing his head thoughtfully. "It is astonishing how the high and
mighty ones have disappeared from this city, where they used to suppose
that they defied the civilized world. The barbarians didn't know what
the civilized world could do to them. The conceited braggadocia of New
Orleans a year ago is a most comical reminiscence now, in the midst of
its speechless terror and submission. One can't help thinking of frogs
sitting around their own puddle and trying to fill the universe with
their roarings. Some urchin throws a stone into the puddle. You see
fifty pairs of legs twinkle in the air, and the uproar is followed by
silence. It was just so here. The United States pitched Farragut and
Butler into the puddle of secession, and all our political roarers dived
out of sight. Many of them are still here, but they keep their noses
under water. By the way, I did see two of my old students, Bradley and
John Akers. Bradley told me that the rebel authorities maintained a
pretence of victory until the last moment, probably in order to keep the
populace quiet while they got themselves and their property out of the
city. He was actually reading an official bulletin stating that the
Yankee fleet had been sunk in passing the forts when he heard the bang,
bang, bang of Farragut's cannonade at Chalmette. Akers was himself at
Chalmette. He says that the Hartford came slowly around the bend below
the fort with a most provoking composure. They immediately opened on her
with all their artillery. She made no reply and began to turn. They
thought she was about to run away, and hurrahed lustily. Suddenly,
whang! crash! she sent her whole broadside into them. Akers says that
not a man of them waited for a second salute; they started for the woods
in a body at full speed; he never saw such running. Their heels twinkled
like the heels of the frog that I spoke of."
"But they made a good fight at the forts, papa."
"My dear, the devil makes a good fight against his Maker. But it small
credit to him--it only proves his amazing stupidity."
"Papa," said Lillie after a few minutes of silence, "I think you might
let those stones alone and take me out to walk."
"To-morrow, my child. It is nearly sunset now, and Mr. Colburne may come
early."
A quarter of an hour later he laid aside his minerals and picked up his
hat.
"Where are you going?" demanded Lillie eagerly and almost pettishly. It
was a question that she never failed to put to him in that same
semi-aggrieved tone every time that he essayed to leave her. She did not
want him to go out unless she went in his company. If he would go, it
was, "When will you come back?" and when he returned it was, "Where have
you been?" and "Who did you see?" and "What did he say?" &c. &c. Never
was a child so haunted by a pet sheep, or a handsome husband by a plain
wife, as was this charming papa by his doating daughter.
"I am going to Dr. Elderkin's," said Ravenel. "I hear that he has been
kind enough to store my electrical machine during our absence. He was
out when I called on him this morning, but he was to be at home by six
this evening. I am anxious to see the machine."
"Oh, papa, don't! How can you be so addled about your sciences! You are
just like a little boy come home from a visit, and pulling over his
playthings. Do let the machine go till to-morrow."
"My dear, consider how costly a plaything it is. I couldn't replace it
for five hundred dollars."
"When will you come back?" demanded Lillie.
"By half-past seven at the latest. Bring in Mrs. Larue to help entertain
Captain Colburne; and be sure to ask him to wait for me."
When he quitted the house Lillie went to the window and watched him
until he was out of sight. She always had a childish aversion to being
left alone, and solitude was now particularly objectionable to her, so
forsaken did she feel in this city where she had once been so happy.
After a time she remembered Captain Colburne and the social duties of a
state of young ladyhood. She hurried to her room, lighted both
gas-burners, turned their full luminosity on the mirror, loosened up the
flossy waves of her blonde hair, tied on a pink ribbon-knot, and then a
blue one, considered gravely as to which was the most becoming and
finally took a profile view of the effect by means of a hand-glass,
prinking and turning and adjusting her plumage like a canary. She was
conscientiously aware, you perceive, of her obligation to put herself in
suitable condition to please the eye of a visitor. She was not a learned
woman, nor an unpleasantly strong-minded one, but an average young lady
of good breeding--just such as most men fall in love with, who wanted
social success, and depended for it upon pretty looks and pleasant ways.
By the time that these private devoirs were accomplished Mrs. Larue
entered, bearing marks of having given her person a similar amount of
fastidious attention. Each of these ladies saw what the other had been
about, but neither thought of being surprised or amused at it. To their
minds such preparation was perfectly natural and womanly, and they would
have deemed the absence of it a gross piece of untidiness and
boorishness. Mrs. Larue put Lillie's blue ribbon-knot a little more off
her forehead, and Lillie smoothed out an almost imperceptible wrinkle in
Mrs. Larue's waist-belt. I am not positively sure, indeed, that
waist-belts were then worn, but I am willing! to take my oath that some
small office of the kind was rendered.
Of course it would be agreeable to have a scene here between Colburne
and Miss Ravenel; some burning words to tell, some thrilling looks to
describe, such as might show how they stood with regard to each
other--something which would visibly advance both these young persons'
heart-histories. But they behaved in a disappointingly well-bred manner,
and entirely refrained from turning their feelings wrong side outwards.
With the exception of Miss Ravenel's inveterate blush and of a slightly
unnatural rapidity of utterance in Captain Colburne, they met like a
young lady and gentleman who were on excellent terms, and had not seen
each other for a month or two. This is not the way that heroes and
heroines meet on the boards or in some romances; but in actual human
society they frequently balk our expectations in just this manner.
Melo-dramatically considered real life is frequently a failure.
"You don't know how pleasant it is to me to meet you and your father,"
said Colburne. "It seems like New Boston over again."
The time during which he had known the Ravenels at New Boston was now a
pasture of very delightful things to his memory.
"It is pleasant to me because it seems like New Orleans," laughed Miss
Lillie. "No, not much like New Orleans, either," she added. "It used to
be so gay and amusing! You have made an awfully sad place of it with
your patriotic invasion."
"It is bad to take medicine," he replied. "But it is better to take it
than to stay sick. If you will have the self-denial to live ten years
longer, you will see New Orleans more prosperous and lively than ever."
"I shan't like it so well. We shall be nobodies. Our old friends will be
driven out, and there will be a new set who won't know us."
"That depends on yourselves. They will be glad to know you, if you will
let them. I understand that the Napoleonic aristocracy courts the old
out-of-place oligarchy of the Faubourg St. Germain. It will be like that
here, I presume."
Mrs. Larue had at first remained silent, playing off a pretty little
game of shyness; but seeing that the young people had nothing special to
say to each other, she gave way to her sociable instincts and joined in
the conversation.
"Captain Colburne, I will promise to live the ten years," she said. "I
want to see New Orleans a metropolis. We have failed. You shall succeed;
and I will admire your success."
The patriotic young soldier looked frankly gratified. He concluded that
the lady was one of the far-famed Unionists of the South, a race then
really about as extinct as the dodo, but devoutly believed in by the
sanguine masses of the North, and of which our officers at New Orleans
were consequently much in search. He began to talk gaily, pushing his
hair up as usual when in good spirits, and laughing heartily at the
slightest approach to wit, whether made by himself or another. Some
people thought that Mr. Colburne laughed too much for thorough good
breeding.
"I feel quite weighted by what you expect," he said. "I want to go to
work immediately and build a brick and plaster State-house like ours in
New Boston. I suppose every metropolis must have a State-house. But you
mustn't expect too much of me; you mustn't watch me too close. I shall
want to sleep occasionally in the ten years."
"We shall look to see you here from time to time," rejoined Mrs. Larue.
"You may be sure that I shan't forget that. There are other reasons for
it besides my admiration for your loyal sentiments," said Colburne,
attempting a double-shotted compliment, one projectile for each lady.
At that imputation of loyal sentiments Lillie could hardly restrain a
laugh; but Mrs. Larue, not in the least disconcerted, bowed and smiled
graciously.
"I am sorry to say," he continued, "that most of the ladies of New
Orleans seem to regard us with a perfect hatred. When I pass them in the
street they draw themselves aside in such a way that I look in the first
attainable mirror to see if I have the small-pox. They are dreadfully
sensitive to the presence of Yankees. They remind me of the catarrhal
gentleman who sneezed every time an ice-cart drove by his house.
Seriously they abuse us. I was dreadfully set down by a couple of women
in black this morning. They entered a street car in which I was. There
were several citizens present, but not one of them offered to give up
his place. I rose and offered them mine. They no more took it than if
they knew that I had scalped all their relatives. They surveyed me from
head to foot with a lofty scorn which made them seem fifty feet high
and fifty years old to my terrified optics. They hissed out, 'We accept
nothing from Yankees,' and remained standing. The hiss would have done
honor to Rachel or to the geese who saved Rome."
The two listeners laughed and exchanged a glance of comprehension.
"Offer them your hand and heart, and see if they won't accept something
from a Yankee," said Mrs. Larue.
Colburne looked a trifle disconcerted, and because he did so Miss
Ravenel blushed. In both these young persons there was a susceptibility,
a promptness to take alarm with regard to hymenial subjects which
indicated at least that they considered themselves old enough to marry
each other or somebody, whether the event would ever happen or not.
"I suppose Miss Ravenel thinks I was served perfectly right," observed
Colburne. "If I see her standing in a street car and offer her my seat,
I suppose she will say something crushing."
He preferred, you see, to talk apropos of Miss Ravenel, rather than of
Mrs. Larue or the Langdons.
"Please don't fail to try me," observed Lillie. "I hate to stand up
unless it is to dance."
As Colburne had not been permitted to learn dancing in his younger days,
and had felt ashamed to undertake it in what seemed to him his present
fullness of years, he had nothing to say on the new idea suggested. The
speech even made him feel a little uneasy: it sounded like an
implication that Miss Ravenel preferred men who danced to men who did
not: so fastidiously jealous and sensitive are people who are ever so
slightly in love.
In this wandering and superficial way the conversation rippled along for
nearly an hour. Colburne had been nonplussed from the beginning by not
finding his young lady alone, and not being able therefore to say to her
at least a few of the affecting things which were in the bottom of his
heart. He had arrived at the house full of pleasant emotion, believing
that he should certainly overflow with warm expressions of friendship if
he did not absolutely pour forth a torrent of passionate affection. Mrs.
Larue had dropped among his agreeable bubbles of expectation like a
piece of ice into a goblet of champagne, taking the life and
effervescence out of the generous fluid. He was occupied, not so much in
talking or listening, as in cogitating how he could bring the
conversation into congeniality with his own feelings. By the way, if he
had found Miss Ravenel alone, I doubt whether he would have dared say
any thing to her of a startling nature. He over-estimated her and was
afraid of her; he under-estimated himself and was too modest.
Lillie had repeatedly wondered to herself why her father did not come.
At last she looked at her watch and exclaimed with anxious astonishment,
"Half past eight! Why, Victorine, where can papa be?"
"At Doctor Elderkin's without doubt. Once that two men commence on the
politics they know not how to finish."
"I don't believe it," said the girl with the unreasonableness common to
affectionate people when they are anxious about the person they like. "I
don't believe he is staying there so long. I am afraid something has
happened to him. He said he would certainly be back by half past seven.
He relied on seeing Captain Colburne. I really am very anxious. The city
is in such a dreadful state!"
"I will go and inquire for him," offered Colburne. "Where is Doctor
Elderkin's?"
"Oh, my dear Captain! don't think of it," objected Mrs. Larue. "You, a
federal officer, you would really be in danger in the streets at night,
in this unguarded part of the city. You would certainly catch harm from
our _canaille_. Re-assure yourself, cousin Lillie. Your father, a
citizen, is in no peril."
Mrs. Larue really believed that the Doctor ran little risk, but her
main object in talking was to start an interest between herself and the
young officer. He smiled at the idea of his being attacked, and,
disregarding the aunt, looked to the niece for orders. Miss Ravenel
thought that he hesitated through fear of the _canaille_ and gave him a
glance of impatience bordering disagreeably close on anger. Smarting
under the injustice of this look he said quietly, "I will bring you some
news before long," inquired the way to the Elderkin house, and went out.
At the first turning he came upon a man sitting on a flight of
front-door steps, and wiping from his face with his handkerchief
something which showed like blood in the gaslight.
"Is that you, Doctor?" he said. "Are you hurt? What has happened?"
"I have been struck.--Some blackguard struck me.--With a bludgeon, I
think."
Colburne picked up his hat, aided in bandaging a cut on the forehead,
and offered his arm.
"It doesn't look very bad, does it?" said Ravenel. "I thought not. My
hat broke the force of the blow. But still it prostrated me. I am really
very much obliged to you."
"Have you any idea who it was?"
"Not the least. Oh, it's only an ordinary New Orleans salutation. I knew
I was in New Orleans when I was hit, just as the shipwrecked man knew he
was in a Christian country when he saw a gallows."
"You take it very coolly, sir. You would make a good soldier."
"I belong in the city. It is one of our pretty ways to brain people by
surprise. I never had it happen to me before, but I have always
contemplated the possibility of it. I wasn't in the least astonished.
How lucky I had on that deformity of civilization, a stiff beaver! I
will wear nothing but beavers henceforward. I swear allegiance to them,
as Baillie Jarvie did to guid braidcloth. A brass helmet would be still
better. Somebody ought to get up a dress hat of aluminum for the New
Orleans market."
"Oh, papa!" screamed Lillie, when she saw him enter on Colburne's arm,
his hat smashed, his face pale, and a streak of half-wiped blood down
the bridge of his nose. She was the whitest of the two, and needed the
most attention for a minute. Mrs. Larue excited Colburne's admiration by
the cool efficiency with which she exerted herself--bringing water,
sponges and bandages, washing the cut, binding it up artistically, and
finishing the treatment with a glass of sherry. Her late husband used to
be brought home occasionally in similar condition, except that he took
his sherry, and a great deal of it too, in advance.
"It was one of those detestable soldiers," exclaimed Lillie.
"No, my dear," said the Doctor. "It was one of our own excellent people.
They are so ardent and impulsive, you know. They have the southern
heart, always fired up. It was some old acquaintance, you may depend,
although I did not recognize him. As he struck me he said, 'Take that,
you Federal spy.' He added an epithet that I don't care to repeat, not
believing that it applies to me. I think he would have renewed the
attack but for the approach of some one, probably Captain Colburne. You
owe him a word of thanks, Lillie, particularly after what you have said
about soldiers."
The young lady held out her hand to the Captain with an impulse of
gratitude and compunction. He took it, and could not resist the
temptation of stooping and kissing it, whereupon her white face flushed
instantaneously to a crimson. Mrs. Larue smiled knowingly and said,
"That is very French, Captain; you will do admirably for New Orleans."
"He doesn't know all the pretty manners and customs of the place,"
remarked the Doctor, who was not evidently displeased at the kiss. "He
hasn't yet learned to knock down elderly gentlemen because they
disagree with him in politics. They are awfully behind-hand at the
North, Mrs. Larue, in those social graces. The mudsill Sumner was too
unpolished to think of clubbing the brains out of the gentleman Brooks.
He boorishly undertook to settle a question of right and justice by
argument."
"You must'nt talk so much, papa," urged Lillie. "You ought to go to
bed."
Colburne bade them good evening, but on reaching the door stopped and
said, "Do you feel safe here?"
Lillie looked grateful and wishful, as though she would have liked a
guard; but the Doctor answered, "Oh, perfectly safe, as far as concerns
that fellow. He ran off too much frightened to attempt any thing more at
present. So much obliged to you!"
Nevertheless, a patrol of the Tenth Barataria did arrive in the vicinity
of the Ravenel mansion during the night, and scoured the streets till
daybreak, arresting every man who carried a cane and could not give a
good account of himself. In a general way, New Orleans was a safer place
in these times than it had been before since it was a village. I may as
well say here that the perpetrator of this assault was not discovered,
and that the adventure had no results except a day or two of headache to
the Doctor, and a considerable progress in the conversion of Miss
Ravenel from the doctrine of state sovereignty. Women, especially
warm-hearted women offended in the persons of those whom they love, are
so terribly illogical! If Mr. Secretary Seward, with all his
constitutional lore and persuasive eloquence, had argued with her for
three weeks, he could not have converted her; but the moment a southern
ruffian knocked her father on the head, she began to see that secession
was indefensible, and that the American Union ought to be preserved.
"It was a mere sporadic outbreak of our local light-heartedness,"
observed Ravenel, speaking of the outrage. "The man had no designs--no
permanent malice. He merely took advantage of a charming opportunity.
He saw a loyal head within reach of his bludgeon, and he instinctively
made a clutch at it. The finest gentlemen of the city would have done as
much under the same temptation."