THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE BEGINS TO RUN ROUGH.
In some Arabian Nights or other, there is a story of voyagers in a
becalmed ship who were drifted by irresistible currents towards an
unknown island. As they gazed at it their eyes were deceived by an
enchantment in the atmosphere, so that they seemed to see upon the shore
a number of beautiful women waiting to welcome them, whereas these
expectant figures were really nothing but hideous apes with carniverous
appetites, whose desire it was to devour the approaching strangers.
As Miss Ravenel drifted towards Colonel Carter she beheld him in the
guise of a pure and noble creature, while in truth he was a more than
commonly demoralized man, with potent capacities for injuring others.
Mrs. Larue, on the other hand, perceived him much as he was, and liked
him none the less for it. Had she lived in the days before the flood she
would not have cared specially for the angels who came down to enjoy
themselves with the daughters of men, except just so far as they
satisfied her vanity and curiosity. Seeing clearly that the Colonel was
not a seraph, but a creature of far lower grade, very coarse and carnal
in some at least of his dispositions, she would still have been pleased
to have him fall in love with her, and would perhaps have accepted him
as a husband. It is probable that she did not have a suspicion of the
glamour which humbugged the innocent eyes of her youthful cousin. But
she did presently perceive that it would be Lillie, and not herself, who
would receive Carter's offer of marriage, if it was ever made to
either. How should she behave under these trying circumstances? Painful
as the discovery may have been to her vanity, it had little effect on a
temper so callously amiable, and none on the lucid wisdom of a spirit so
clarified by selfishness. She showed that she was a person of good
worldly sense, and of little heart. She soon brought herself to
encourage the Carter flirtation, partly because she had a woman's
passion for seeing such things move on, and partly for reasons of state.
If the Colonel married Lillie he would be a valuable friend at court;
moreover the match could not hurt the social position of her relatives,
who were ostracised as Yankees already; it would be all gain and no
loss. She soon discovered, as she thought, that there was no need of
blowing the Colonel's trumpet in the ears of Miss Lillie, and that the
young lady could be easily brought to greet him with a betrothal hymn
of, "Hail to the chief who in triumph advances." But the Doctor, who
evidently did not like the Colonel, might exercise a deleterious
influence on these fine chances. Madame Larue must try to lead the silly
old gentleman to take a reasonable look at his own interests. What a
paroxysm of vexation and contempt she would have gone into, had she
known of his refusal to make forty or fifty thousand dollars on sugar,
merely because the transaction might furnish the Confederate army with
salt and quinine! Not being aware of this act of cretinism, she went at
him on the marriage business with a hopeful spirit.
"What an admirable _parti_ for some of our New Orleans young ladies
would be the Colonel Carter!"
The Doctor smiled and bowed his assent, because such was his habit
concerning all matters which, were indifferent to him. The fact that he
had lived twenty-five years in New Oceans without ever being driven to
fight a duel, although disagreeing with its fiery population on various
touchy subjects, shows what an exquisite courtesy he must have
maintained in his manners and conversation.
"I must positively introduce him to Mees Langdon or Mees Dumas, and see
what will come of it," pursued Madame.
Ravenel professed and looked his delight at the proposition, without
caring a straw for the subject, being engaged in a charming
mineralogical revery. Mrs. Larue perceived his indifference and was
annoyed by it, but continued to smile with the Indian-like fortitude of
a veteran worldling.
"He is of an excellent family--one of the best families of Virginia. He
would be a suitable _parti_ for any young lady of my acquaintance. There
is no doubt that he has splendid prospects. He is almost the only
regular officer in the department. Of course he will win promotion. I
should not be surprised to see him supersede Picayune Butler. I beg your
pardon--I mean Major-General Butler. I hear him so constantly called
Picayune that I feel as if that was his name of baptism. Mark my
prophecy now. In a year that man will be superseded by Colonel Carter."
"It might be a change for the better," admitted the Doctor with the
composure of a Gallio.
"The Colonel has a large salary," continued Madame. "The mayoralty gives
him three thousand, and his pay as colonel is two thousand six hundred.
Five thousand six hundred dollars seems a monstrous salary in these days
of poverty."
"It does, indeed," coincided the Doctor, remembering his own fifteen
hundred, with a momentary dread that it would hardly keep him out of
debt.
Mrs. Larue paused and considered whether she should venture further. She
had already got as far as this two or three times without eliciting from
her brother-in-law a word good or bad as to the matter which she had at
heart. She had been like a boy who walks two miles to a pond, puts on
his skates, looks at the thinly frozen surface, shakes his doubtful
head, unbuckles his skates and trudges home again. She resolved to try
the ice this time, at no matter what risk of breaking it.
"I have been thinking that he would not be a bad _parti_ for my little
cousin."
The Doctor laid aside his Robinsonites in some quiet corner of his mind,
and devoted himself to the subject of the conversation, leaning forward
and surveying Madame earnestly through his spectacles.
"I would almost rather bury her," he said in his excitement.
"You amaze me. There is a difference in age, I grant. But how little! He
is still what we call a young man. And then marriages are so difficult
to make up in these horrible times. Who else is there in all New
Orleans?"
"I don't see why she should marry at all," said the Doctor very warmly.
"Why can't she continue to live with me?"
"Positively you are not serious."
"I certainly am. I beg pardon for disagreeing with you, but I don't see
why I shouldn't entertain the idea I mention."
"Oh! when it comes to that, there is no arguing. You step out of the
bounds of reason into pure feeling and _egoïsme_. I also beg your
pardon, but I must tell you that you are _egoïste_. To forbid a girl to
marry is like forbidding a young man to engage in business, to work, to
open his own _carrière_. A woman who must not love is defrauded of her
best rights."
"Why can't she be satisfied with loving me?" demanded the Doctor. He
knew that he was talking irrationally on this subject; but what he meant
to say was, "I don't like Colonel Carter."
"Because that would leave her an unhappy, sickly old maid," retorted
Madame. "Because that would leave you without grandchildren."
Ravenel rose and walked the room with a melancholy step and a
countenance full of trouble. Suddenly he stopped short and turned upon
Mrs. Larue a look of anxious inquiry.
"I hope you have not observed in Lillie any inclination towards
this--this idea."
"Not the slightest," replied Madame, lying frankly, and without the
slightest hesitation or confusion.
"And you have not broached it to her?"
"Never!" affirmed the lady solemnly, which was another whopper.
"I sincerely hope that you will not. Oblige me, I beg you, by promising
that you will not."
"If such is your pleasure," sighed Madame. "Well--I promise."
"I am so much obliged to you," said the Doctor.
"I know that there is a difference in age," Mrs. Larue recommenced,
thereby insinuating that that was the only objection to the match that
she could imagine: but her brother-in-law solemnly shook his head, as if
to say that he had other reasons for opposition compared with which this
was a trifle: and so, after taking a sharp look at him, she judged it
wise to drop the subject.
"I hope," concluded the Doctor, "that hereafter, when I am away, you
will allow Lillie to receive calls in your house. There is a back
passage. It is neither quite decorous to receive gentlemen alone here,
nor to send them away."
Mrs. Larue made no objection to this plan, seeing that she could be just
as strict or just as careless a duenna as she chose.
"I wonder why he has such an aversion to the match," she thought.
Accustomed to see men matured in vice lead innocent young girls to the
altar, habituated to look upon the notoriously pure-minded Doctor as a
social curiosity rather than a social standard, she scarcely guessed,
and could not realize, the repugnance with which such a father would
resign a daughter to the doubtful protection of a husband chosen from
the class known as men about town.
"Aurait il découvert," she continued to meditate; "ce petit liaison de
monsieur le colonel? Il est vraiment curieux mon beau-frere; c'est
plutôt une vierge qu'un homme."
I beg the reader not to do this clever lady the injustice to suppose
that she kept or ever intended to keep her promise to the Doctor. To
him, indeed, she did not for a long time speak of the proposed marriage,
intending thereby to lull his suspicions to sleep, and thus prevent him
from offering any timely opposition to that natural course of human
events which might alone suffice to bring about the desired end. But
into Lillie's ears she perpetually whispered pleasant things concerning
Carter, besides leaving the two alone together for ten, fifteen, twenty
minutes at a time, until Lillie would get alarmed at her unusual
position, and become either nervously silent or nervously talkative. For
these services the Colonel was not as grateful as he should have been.
He was just the man to believe that he could make his own way in a love
affair, and need not burden himself with a sense of obligation for any
one's assistance. Moreover, valuing himself on his knowledge of life, he
thought that he understood Mrs. Larue's character perfectly, and
declared that he was not the man to be managed by such an intriguante,
however knowing. He did in fact perceive that she was corrupt, and by
the way he liked her none the worse for it, although he would not have
married her. To Colburne he spoke of her gaily and conceitedly as "the
Larue," or sometimes as "La rouée," for he knew French well enough to
make an occasional bad pun in it. The Captain, on the other hand, never
mentioned her except respectfully, feeling himself bound to treat any
relative of Miss Ravenel with perfect courtesy.
But while Carter supposed that he comprehended the Larue, he walked in
the path which she had traced out for him. From week to week he found
it more agreeable to be with Miss Ravenel. Those random tête-a-têtes
which to her were so alarming, were to him so pleasant that he caught
himself anticipating them with anxiety. The Colonel might have known
from his past experience, he might have known by only looking at his
high-colored face and powerful frame in a mirror, that it was not a safe
amusement for him to be so much with one charming lady. Self-possessed
in his demeanor, and, like most roués, tolerably cool for a little
distance below the surface of his feelings, he was at bottom and by the
decree of imperious nature, very volcanic. As we say of some fiery
wines, there was a great deal of body to him. At this time he was
determined not to fall in love. He remembered how he had been infatuated
in other days, and dreaded the return of the passionate dominion. To use
his own expression, "he made such a blasted fool of himself when he once
got after a woman!"
Nevertheless, he began to be, not jealous; he could not admit that very
soft impeachment; but he began to want to monopolize Miss Ravenel. When
he found Colburne in her company he sometimes talked French to her,
thereby embarrassing and humiliating the Captain, who understood nothing
of the language except when he saw it in print, and could trace out the
meaning of some words by their resemblance to Latin. The young lady,
either because she felt for Colburne's awkward position, or because she
did not wish to be suspected of saying things which she might not have
dared utter in English, usually restored the conversation to her mother
tongue after a few sentences. Once her manner in doing this was so
pointed that the Colonel apologized.
"I beg pardon, Captain," he said, to which he added a white lie. "I
really supposed that you spoke French."
No; Colburne did not speak French, nor any other modern language; he did
not draw, nor sing, nor play, and was in short as destitute of
accomplishments as are most Americans. He blushed at the Colonel's
apology, which mortified him more than the offence for which it was
intended to atone. He would have given all his Greek for a smattering of
Gallic, and he took a French teacher the next morning.
Another annoyance to Colburne was Mrs. Larue. He was still so young in
heart matters, or rather in coquetry, that he was troubled by being made
the object of airs of affection which he could not reciprocate. I do not
mean to say that the lady was in love with him; she never had been in
love in her life, and was not going to begin at thirty-three. The plain,
placid truth was, that she was willing to flirt with him to please
herself, and determined to keep him away from Lillie in order to give
every possible chance to Carter. Only when Mrs. Larue said "flirt," she
meant indescribable things, such as ladies may talk of without reproach
among themselves, but which, if introduced into print, are considered
very improper reading. Meantime neither Carter nor Colburne understood
her, although the former would have hooted at the idea that he did not
comprehend the lady perfectly.
"By Jove!" soliloquized the knowing Colonel, "she is sweeter on him than
a pailful of syrup. She puts one in mind of a boa-constrictor. She is
licking him all over, preparatory to swallowing him. Not a bad sort of
serpent to have around one, either," pursued the Colonel, almost winking
to himself, so knowing did he feel. "Not a bad sort of serpent. Only I
shouldn't care about marrying her."
Indeed the Colonel reminds one a little of "devilish sly old Joey
Bagstock."
The innocent Colburne acknowledged to himself that he did not comprehend
Mrs. Larue nor her purposes. He would have inferred from her ways that
she wanted him for a husband, only that she spoke in a very cool way of
the matrimonial state.
"Marriage will not content me, nor will single life," she said to him
one day. "I have tried both, and I cannot recommend either. It is a
choice between two evils, and one does not know to say which is the
least."
Widows in search of second husbands do not talk publicly in this style,
and Colburne intelligently concluded that he was not to be invited to
the altar. At the same time Mrs. Larue went on in this way, she treated
him to certain appetizing little movements, glances and words, which led
him to suspect with some vague alarm that she did not mean to let him
off as a mere acquaintance. Finally, as is supposed, an explanation
ensued which was not to his liking. There was an interview of half an
hour in a back parlor, brought about by the graceful manoeuvres of the
lady, of which Colburne steadily refused to reveal the secrets, although
straitly questioned by the fun-loving Colonel.
"By Jove! he's been bluffing her," soliloquized Carter, who thought he
perceived that from this private confabulation the parties came forth on
terms of estrangement. "What a queer fellow he is! Suppose he didn't
want to marry her--he might amuse himself. It would be pleasant to him,
and wouldn't hurt her. Hanged if he isn't a curiosity!"
The next time that Colburne called on Miss Ravenel the Larue took her
revenge for that mysterious defeat, the particulars of which I am unable
to relate. To comprehend the nature and efficiency of this vengeance, it
is necessary to take a dive into the recesses of New Orleans society.
There is a geographical fable of civilized white negroes in the centre
of Africa, somewhere near the Mountains of the Moon. This fable is
realized in the Crescent City and in some of the richest planting
districts of Louisiana, where you will find a class of colored people,
who are not black people at all, having only the merest fraction of
negro blood in their veins, and who are respectable in character,
numbers of them wealthy, and some of them accomplished. These Creoles,
as they call themselves, have been free for generations, and until
Anglo-Saxon law invaded Louisiana, enjoyed the same rights as other
citizens. They are good Catholics; they marry and are given in marriage;
their sons are educated in Paris on a perfect level with young
Frenchmen; their daughters receive the strict surveillance which is
allotted to girls in most southern countries. In the street many of them
are scarcely distinguishable from the unmixed descendants of the old
French planters. But there is a social line of demarkation drawn about
them, like the sanitary cordon about an infected district. The
Anglo-Saxon race, the proudest race of modern times, does not marry nor
consort with them, nor of late years does the pure French Creole, driven
to join in this ostracism by the brute force of Henghist and Horsa
prejudice. The New Orleanois who before the war should have treated
these white colored people on terms of equality, would have shared in
their opprobrium, and perhaps have been ridden on a rail by his outraged
fellow-citizens of northern descent.
Now these white negroes from the Mountains of the Moon constituted the
sole loyal class, except the slaves, which Butler found in Louisiana.
They and their black cousins of the sixteenth degree were the only
people who, as a body, came forward with joy to welcome the drums and
tramplings of the New England Division; and when the commanding General
called for regiments of free blacks to uphold the Stars and Stripes, he
met a patriotic response as enthusiastic as that of Connecticut or
Massachusetts. Foremost in this military uprising were two brothers of
the name of Meurice, who poured out their wealth freely to meet those
incidental expenses, never acknowledged by Government, which attend the
recruiting of volunteer regiments. They gave dinners and presented
flags; they advanced uniforms, sabres and pistols for officers; they
trusted the families of private soldiers. The youngest Meurice became
Major of one of the regiments, which I take to be the nearest approach
to a miracle ever yet enacted in the United States of America. Their
entertainments became so famous that invitations to them were gratefully
accepted by officers of Anglo-Saxon organizations. At their profuse yet
elegant table, where Brillât-Savarin would not have been annoyed by a
badly cooked dish or an inferior wine, and where he might have listened
to the accents of his own Parisian, Colburne had met New Englanders, New
Yorkers, and even stray Marylanders and Kentuckians. There he became
acquainted (ignorant Baratarian that he was!) with the _tasse de cafe
noir_ and the _petit verre de cognac_ which close a French dinner. There
he smoked cigars which gave him new ideas concerning the value of Cuba.
For these pleasures he was now to suffer at the Caucasian hands of
Madame Larue.
"I am afraid that we are doomed to lose you, Captain Colburne," she said
with a smile which expressed something worse than good-natured raillery.
"I hear that you have made some fascinating acquaintances in New
Orleans. I never myself had the pleasure of knowing the Meurices. They
are very charming, are they not?"
Colburne's nerves quivered under this speech, not because he was
conscious of having done any thing unbecoming a gentleman, but because
he divined the clever malice of the attack. To gentle spirits the
consciousness that they are the objects of spite, is a dolorous
sensation.
"It is a very pleasant and intelligent family," he replied bravely.
"Who are they?" smilingly asked Miss Ravenel, who inferred from her
aunt's manner that Colburne was to be charged with a flirtation.
"Ce sont des métis, ma chère," laughed Mrs. Larue. "Il y a dîné
plusieurs fois. Ces abolitionistes ont leur goûts à eux."
Lillie colored crimson with amazement, with horror, with downright
anger. To this New Orleans born Anglo-Saxon girl, full of the pride of
lineage and the prejudices of the slaveholding society in which she had
been nurtured, it seemed a downright insult that a gentleman who called
on her, should also call on a _métis_, and admit it and defend it. She
glanced at Colburne to see if he had a word to offer of apology or
explanation. It might be that he had visited these mixed bloods in the
performance of some disagreeable but unavoidable duty as an officer of
the Federal army. She hoped so, for she liked him too well to be willing
to despise him.
"Intelligent? But without doubt," assented Madame, "if they had been
stupid, you would not have dined with them four or five times."
"Three times, to be exact, Mrs. Larue," said Colburne. He had formed his
line of battle, and could be not merely defiant but ironically
aggressive. But the lady was master of the southern tactics; she had
taken the initiative, and she attacked audaciously; although, I must
explain, without the slightest sign of irritation.
"Which do you find the most agreeable," she asked, "the white people of
New Orleans, or the brown?"
Colburne was tempted to reply that he did not see much difference, but
refrained on account of Miss Ravenel; and, dropping satire, he entered
on a calm defence, less of himself than of the mixed race in question.
He affirmed their intelligence, education, good breeding, respectability
of character, and exceptional patriotism in a community of rebels.
"You, Mrs. Larue, think something of the elegancies of society as an
element of civilization," he said. "Now then, I am obliged to confess
that these people can give a finer dinner, better selected, better
cooked, better served, than I ever saw in my own city of New Boston,
notwithstanding that we are as white as they are and--can't speak
French. These Meurices, for example, have actually given me new ideas of
hospitality, as something which may be plenteous without being coarse,
and cordial without being laboreous. I don't hesitate to call them nice
people. As for the African blood in their veins (if that is a reproach)
I can't detect a trace of it. I shouldn't have believed it if they
hadn't assured me of it. There is a little child there, a cousin, with
blue eyes and straight flaxen hair. She has the honor, if it is one, of
being whiter than I am."
It will be remembered here that any one who was whiter than Colburne was
necessarily much whiter than Mrs. Larue.
"When I first saw the eldest Meurice," he proceeded, "I supposed from
his looks that he was a German. The Major bears a striking resemblance
to the first Napoleon, and is certainly one of the handsomest men that I
have seen in New Orleans. His manners are charming, as I suppose they
ought to be, seeing that he has lived in Paris since he was a child."
Mrs. Larue had never transgressed the borders of Louisiana.
"When this war broke out he came home to see if he might be permitted to
fight for his race, and for his and my country. He now wears the same
uniform that I do, and he is my superior officer."
"It is shameful," broke out Lillie.
"It is the will of authority," answered Colburne,--"of authority that I
have sworn to respect."
"A southern gentleman would resign," said Mrs. Larue.
"A northern gentleman keeps his oath and stands by his flag," retorted
Colburne.
Mrs. Larue paused, suppressed her rising excitement, and with an
exterior air of meekness considered the situation. She had gained her
battle; she had wounded and punished him; she had probably detached
Lillie from him; now she would stop the conflict.
"I beg pardon," she said, looking him full in the eyes with a charming
little expression of penitence. "I am sorry if I have annoyed you. I
thought, I hoped, you might perhaps be obliged to me for hinting to you
that these people are not received here in society. You are a stranger,
and do not know our prejudices. I pray you to excuse me if I have been
officious."
Colburne was astonished, disarmed, ashamed, notwithstanding that he had
been in the right and was the injured party.
"Mrs. Larue, I beg your pardon," he answered. "I have been unnecessarily
excited. I sincerely ask you pardon."
She accorded it in pleasant words and with the most amiable of smiles.
She was a good-natured, graceful little grimalkin, she could be pretty
and festive over a mouse while torturing it; so purring and
velvet-pawed, indeed, that the mouse himself could not believe her to be
in earnest, and prayed to be excused for turning upon her. It is
probable that, not being susceptible to keen emotions, she did not know
what deep pain she had given the young man by her attack. The advantage
which blasé people have over innocents in a fight is awful. They know
how to hit, and they don't mind the punishing. It is said that Deaf
Burke's physiognomy was so calloused by frequent poundings that he would
permit any man to give him a facer for a shilling a crack.
Lillie said almost nothing during the conversation, being quite overcome
with amazement and anger at Colburne's degradation and at the
wrongheadedness, the indelicacy, the fanaticism with which he defended
it. When the erring young man left the house she did not give him her
hand, after her usual friendly southern fashion. The pride of race, the
prejudices of her education, would not permit her to be cordial, at
least not in the first moments of offence, with one who felt himself at
liberty to go from her parlor to that of an octoroon. How could a Miss
Ravenel put herself on a level with a Miss Meurice.
"Oh, these abolitionists! these negar worshippers!" laughed Mrs. Larue,
when the social heretic had taken himself away. "Are they not horrible,
these New England isms? He will be joining the voodoos next. I foresee
that you will have rivals, Mees Lillie. I fear that Mademoiselle Meurice
will carry the day. You are under the disadvantage of being white. Et
puis tu n'est pas descendue d'une race bâtarde. Quel malheur! Je ne
dirais rien s'il entretenait son octaronne a lui. Voilà qui est permis,
bien que ce n'est pas joli."
"Mrs. Larue, I wish you wouldn't talk to me in that way;--I don't like
to hear it," said Lillie, in high anger.
"Mais c'est mieux an moins que de les épouser, les octaronnes,"
persisted Madame.
Miss Ravenel rose and went to her own house and room without answering.
Since her father fled from New Orleans, openly espousing the cause of
the North against the South, she had not been so vexed, so hurt, as she
was by this vulgar conduct of her friend, Captain Colburne. Although it
cannot be said that she had even begun to love him, she certainly did
like him better than any other man that she ever knew, excepting her
father and Colonel Carter. She had thought, also, that he liked her too
well to do anything which would be sure to meet her disapprobation; and
her womanly pride was exceedingly hurt in that her friendship had been
risked for the sake of communion with a race of pariahs. There is little
doubt that Colburne now had small chance with Miss Ravenel. He guessed
as much, and the thought cut him even more deeply that he could have
imagined; but he was too chivalrous to be false to his education, to his
principles, to himself, though it were to gain the heart of the only
woman whom he had ever loved. In fact, so fastidious was his sense of
honor that he had disdained to fortify himself against Mrs. Larue's
attack by stating, as he might have done truthfully, that at one of
these Meurice dinners he had sat by the side of Colonel Carter.
I consider it worth while to mention here that Colburne committed a
great mistake about this time in declining a regiment which the eldest
Meurice offered to raise for him, providing he would apply for the
colonelcy. But it was not for fear of Mrs. Larue nor yet of Miss Ravenel
that he declined the proffer. He took the proposition into serious
consideration and referred it to Carter, who advised him against it.
Public opinion on this subject had not yet become so overpoweringly
luminous that the old regular, the West Point Brahmin, could see the
negro in a military light.
"I may be all wrong," he admitted with a considerable effusion of
swearing. "If the war spins out it may prove me all wrong. A downright
slaughtering match of three or four years will force one party or other
to call in the nigger. But I can't come to it yet. I despise the low
brute. I hate to see him in uniform. And then he never will be used for
the higher military operations. If you take a command of niggers, you
will find yourself put into Fort Pike or some such place, among the
mosquitoes and fever and ague, where white men can't live. Or your
regiment will be made road-builders, and scavengers, and baggage guards,
to do the dirty work of white regiments. You never will form a line of
battle, nor head a storming column, nor get any credit if you do. And
finally, just look at the military position of these Louisiana black
regiments. They are not acknowledged by the government yet; they are not
a part of the army. They are only Louisiana militia, called out by
General Butler on his own responsibility. Suppose the War Department
shouldn't approve his policy;--then down goes your house. You have
resigned your captaincy to get a sham colonelcy; and there you are, out
of the service, with a bran-new uniform. Stay in the regiment. You shall
have, by" (this and that!) "the first vacancy in the field positions."
In fact it was an _esprit du corps_ which more than anything else
induced Colburne to cling to the Tenth Barataria. A volunteer, a citizen
soldier, new to the ways of armies, he longed to do his fighting under
his own State flag, and at the head of the men whom he had himself
raised and drilled for the battle-field.
About these times Colonel Carter broke up that more than questionable
domestic establishment which Lieutenant Van Zandt had alluded to under
the humorous misnomer of "a little French _boudoir_." Whether this step
was taken by the advice of Mrs. Larue, or solely because the Colonel had
found some source of truer enjoyment, I am unable to say; but it is
certain, and it is also a very natural human circumstance, that from
this day his admiration for Miss Ravenel burgeoned rapidly into the
condition of a passion.