Chapter I

"Adown the lovely waters,
Behold the vessel glide,
While beauty's fairest daughters
Gaze on the laughing tide."

"She sought no notice, therefore gained it all,
As thus she stood apart from all the throng
Of heartless ones that passed before her eyes."

The Mississippi--river of majestic beauties--with the green, delightful shores, elegant plantations, and dense forests of tall cotton-wood and dark, funereal cypress, overhung with the parasitical moss, gliding panorama-like before the enraptured vision! How proudly the mighty steam-boats cut the turbid water, bearing the wealth and merchandise of those productive lands to the numerous towns and cities that adorn the banks of the majestic river!

It was a lovely night in early June, and the guards of that queenliest of all queenly boats, the "Eclipse," were thronged with ladies and gentlemen just risen from their evening banquet in the sumptuous dining-saloon. They were passing Baton Rouge, and many an exclamation of delight was uttered, not only in admiration of the lovely scenery around them, but that they were so happily near the terminus of a journey, which, despite the splendid appointments of the boat, was fraught with danger, and occasioned more or less uneasiness and anxiety in the bosoms of all the passengers.

Apart from the crowd, leaning over the balustrade, her dark eyes riveted on the lovely prospect passing before her vision, stood a young girl of perhaps fifteen summers. Her form was slight, and a profusion of black, wavy ringlets floated over her small shoulders, while in all her movements was visible that singularly beautiful grace of motion, ever so attractive, and which is noticed only in very finely-constituted organizations. She stood apart from the hilarious groups around her, evidently

"In a shade of thoughts that were not their thoughts."

Her simple grace and self-possession, and the indifference manifested to the flattering attentions bestowed upon her by the gentlemen during the voyage, had rendered her an object of peculiar interest with them, and provoked no small amount of envy and invidious remark from the weaker sex.

"Look there," remarked a freckled-faced lady in blue and yellow, to a counterpart in red and green; "see Miss Pink o' Propriety, as the captain calls her, standing out there alone, to attract some gentleman's notice."

"Of course," returned miss red and green, sneeringly. "I hate that girl, she puts on such airs. And travelling alone, in charge of the captain and clerk, shows what she is plainly. There, look! The bait has taken,--Mr. Gilbert is caught!" and the rainbow ladies joined in a loud laugh, as a fine-looking gentleman approached the fair, abstracted girl, and accosted her.

"Always flying your crowd of admirers," said he, "and hiding in some sly nook. Please tell me some of your pretty thoughts, as we glide past this lovely scenery, Miss Orville."

"The recital of my poor thoughts would not repay you for listening," said the young lady, with a pleasant smile.

"Now I may consider myself dismissed, I suppose," remarked the gentleman; "but if you don't tolerate me, you'll have to some other of my sex; for naught so charms us contradictory human bipeds as indifference to our gracious attentions, and we always pay our most assiduous court where it receives the smallest consideration."

"Well, if you choose to remain and entertain me with your company--" commenced the fair girl.

"I can do so, but you prefer to be alone," interrupted the young man; "is not that what you would say?"

"As you have been pleased to give expression to my unexpressed thoughts, I'll abide by your decision," she remarked quietly.

The gentleman bade her good-evening, and walked away, looking somewhat chagrined by his easy dismissal. On the fore-deck he found the clerk of the boat.

"I've just come from Miss Orville," he said, falling into step with the latter. "You are a lucky fellow, Mr. Clerk, to have such a lovely being entrusted to your care."

"She is a sweet young lady, indeed," said the clerk. "I was never trusted with a charge in which I felt more interest."

"No wonder. Half the gentlemen on the boat are in love with her, and she is so mercilessly indifferent to all their blandishments! Yet she is of an age to love flattery and adulation."

"She appears like one whose heart is preöccupied," remarked the clerk.

"But she is too young for that to be the case, I would suppose."

"Love is restricted to no particular age."

"She is from the north, too, and the maidens of those cold climes are less susceptible to the influence of the tender passion than the daughters of our sunny shores," pursued Gilbert.

"Less susceptible it may be," answered the clerk, "but once enkindled, the flame seldom flickers or grows dim. Northern hearts are slow to wake and hard to change. I was raised in Yankee land, Gilbert, and should know something of Yankee girls."

"True, true; but where do you say this young lady is going?"

"To New Orleans."

"And do you know where she will stop in the city?"

"At the residence of her uncle, Esq. Camford."

"Possible? I know that family well."

"Indeed," remarked the clerk; "then you may have an opportunity to pursue your acquaintance with Miss Orville, in whom you seem to feel more than ordinary interest."

"Why, yes," said Gilbert, "I believe I'm in love with her at present; but then I don't make so serious a matter of a heart affair as many do."

Gilbert was a wealthy southern planter, of rather easy, dissolute habits, yet possessed of some redeeming points.

"With good luck we shall hail the Crescent City to-morrow," remarked the clerk, at length, as he stood regarding the speed of the boat with admiring gaze.

"Say you so?" exclaimed Gilbert. "I must have a last game of euchre to-night, then;" and he hurried into the saloon to make up a party.

"Hilloa, Reams!" said he to a foppish-looking fellow, lying at length on a rosewood sofa, intent on the pages of a yellow-covered volume which he held above his perfumed head; "come, have done with 'Ten Thousand a Year,' and let us have a last game of cards. We shall be in New Orleans to-morrow, so here's our last chance on _la belle_ Eclipse."

"O, give over your game!" yawned the indolent Reams. "I'm better employed, as you see."

"No!" returned Gilbert, "I'll not give over; if you won't play, I can find enough that will. You are a cowardly chap, Reams; because you lost a few picayunes last night, you are afraid to try your luck again. Where's that young fellow, Morris?"

"What, the handsome lad from old Tennessee?" said Reams, languidly passing his taper fingers through his lavender-moistened locks; "he will never hear of any cards save wedding ones tied with white satin, for he has been for the last half hour on the guards in earnest conversation with that pretty Miss Orville."

"The deuce he has!" exclaimed Gilbert with a blank expression, as he walked away with a hasty step, leaving Reams to adjust himself to his book again. He soon collected a group of card-players and sat down to his game; while young Wayland Morris and sweet Alice Orville promenaded the hurricane deck, and admired the beautiful scenery through which they were gliding, from the lofty pilot-house, conversing with the ease and freedom of old acquaintances; for thus ever do kindred souls recognize and flow into each other wherever they chance to meet in this fair world of ours.