There had come in their absence another; it was she who was the youthful companion of his fairy at the Bayou Sara—­a silent, reserved woman:  very timid and very polished.  Upon the gallery she was awaiting the return of her cousin.  The meeting was (as all meetings between high-bred women should be) quiet, but cordial; without show, but full of heart.  They loved one another, and were highbred women.  The stranger was presented, and at tea the cousin was informed that he was the man from the mountains, and there was a curious, silent surprise in her face, when she almost whispered, “I am pleased, sir, to meet you again.  I hope you will realize the romance of my cousin’s dream with your legends of the West, the woods, and the wild men of the prairies.”

Days went by, and still the fever raged in the city.  The cerulean was bright and unflecked with a speck of vapor, like a concave mirror of burnished steel.  It hung above, and the red sun seemed to burn his way through the azure mass.  The leaves drooped as if weighted with lead, and in the shade kindly thrown upon the wilting grass by the tulips, oaks, and pecans about the yard, the poultry lifted their wings and panted with exhaustion in the sickly heat of the fervid atmosphere.  The sun had long passed the zenith, dinner was over, and the inmates were enjoying the siesta, so refreshing in this climate of the sun.  Here and there the leaves would start and dally with a vagrant puff from vesper’s lips, then droop again as if in grief at the vagaries of the little truant which now was fanning and stirring into lazy motion another leafy limb.

There was music in the drawing room.  It was suppressed and soft—­so sweet that it melted into the heart in very stealth.  Ah! it is gone.  “Home, sweet home!” Poor Paine! like you, wandering in the friendless streets of England’s metropolis and listening to your own sweet song, breathed from titled lips in palatial Homes, the listener to-day was homeless.  He thought of you and the convivial hours he had passed with you, listening to the narrative of your vagrant life, and how happy you were in the poetry of your own thoughts when you were a stranger to every one, and your purse was empty, and you knew not where you were to find your dinner.

Genius, thou art a fatal gift!  Ever creating, never realizing; living in a world of beauty etherialized in imagination’s lens, and hating the material world as it is; buffeted by fortune and ridiculed by fools whose conceptions never rise above the dirt.

A little note, sweetly scented, is placed in his hand: 

“Cousin and I propose a ride.  Shall we have your company?  You are aware it is the Sabbath.  You must not, for us, do violence to your prejudices.”

“Is this,” thought he, “a delicate invitation to save my feelings, and is the latter clause meant as a hint that they do not want me?  Well, the French always, when a compliment has as much bitter as sweet in it, take the sweet and leave the bitter unappropriated.  It is a good example.  I will follow it.  Say to the ladies I will accompany them.”