 | CHAPTER XI.
NEW ORLEANS LIFE AND NEW ORLEANS LADIES. Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
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
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 polities, 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,
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 Soule
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
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
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 is 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
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
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
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
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 fell 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
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
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
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 does'nt 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
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 adyance.
“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
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 lightheartedness,”
observed Ravenel, speaking of the outrage.
“The man had no designs—no permanent malice. 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.”
| CHAPTER XI.
NEW ORLEANS LIFE AND NEW ORLEANS LADIES. Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty | |