unfortunately (being, as I said, a stranger), a little
too particular for my hotel laundry."

The ancient lady met my difficulty. " Judy
Flanagan in our court is an excellent laundress."
So I accompanied her to the classic locality
called Mop-alley, New Orleans. It is about
forty feet long, and ten feet wide, and is bounded
by what are locally called "ten footers:" a
species of lean-to edifices, containing a front
room lighted from the court, and a back room
with a skylight. The court is floored with
rough boards, with large square apertures to let
the rain through. It shelters a laundress, a
carpenter, a cobbler, and a bird-cage maker, I
know; and I suppose sundry other callings
are represented in it. As no wells can be dug
in New Orleans, the city being built on a
swamp, every dwelling usually has its cistern.
Mop-alley had one cistern, but laundry-work
could not flourish on this small resource, hence
Judy had set a row of tubs to catch water—and
not to catch it in driblets either—for showers are
showers in the land of the sun.

I stood among the tubs, unmindful of my
pretended wants (though I really did want a good
laundress, now I think of it) and of Judy's
occupation. I wished—for a reason that I had—
to know how much the ancient dame could trust
me, a stranger; and I asked to be allowed to take
the little dog in my own hands. The old eyes
looked trustingly into mine, and she put her
treasure unreservedly into my keeping. I
adopted that old lady there and then; for if
there be one thing that delights me above all
others, it is human trust. When the mass of
us can trust GOD and one another, our
Millennium will have begun.

I inanely asked—still for that reason that I
had—whether, as an admirer of dogs, I could,
and might, for one moment look at the little
dog's mother?

"I really wish to oblige you," said the old
lady, "but my son is very sick, and I am afraid
of disturbing him. Wait here a moment."

She passed into the first room and into the
second, and I heard a feeble voice ask, "Have
you seen her?" "Yes, but give me a moment,
my dear; there is a stranger at the door." And
out she came, with the mother-dog in a basket.
"Very pretty," I said, stroking the silky creature
leisurely, and putting the puppy and my
purse into the basket together. And that was
the reason I had had, you understand.

I took a hurried leave of the old lady, and
made with all speed for the end of Mop-alley by
which I had entered, when whom should I there
stumble upon, of all good women, but one of
the sisterhood of St. Vincent de Paul? And
what particular sister should I stumble upon, of
all good sisters, but my blessed Sister Angela of
last year, the terrible year of the yellow fever?

Her face beamed delightfully as I uttered her
name, and she said in her placid way, yet
earnestly, " I am so glad; for I have need of you
to-morrow. I need not ask you to be punctual,
for you are always punctual." And then she
told me hurriedly that she was nursing a poor
heartbroken lad whom she had recently
discovered; that he was a Genius; that she was
sure he was heartsick, though he would not
confide in her; that she thought he would confide
in me, as another young fellow (whether she
thought I was heartsick too I cannot say, but
upon my honour I was not;—at least, I don't
think I was); and that this was what she wanted
me for; and that she had no time to say more
then, being in a hurry. These sisters always are
in a hurry, though they are never hurried: so I
made no effort to detain her, and she went down
Mop-alley, attended by a girl bearing a basket.

Next morning I was at the corner of Mop-alley
at two minutes before eleven A.M., and there
at the corner were the angelic white goose-wings,
ready to waft me to my sphere of usefulness.
It was the very house into which the old lady
had gone yesterday.

The skylight window was raised in the roof
of the small room into which the goose-wings
bore me; the panes of glass were painted or
papered with green; a ghastly light fell on the
face of an emaciated young man. His burning
eyes seemed to have burned away down into
their sockets, his thin fingers clutched the
counterpane, and were almost as white as it.

Sister Angela's introduction of me was simply
in this wise: "This is a good kind gentleman, and
you will call him a good fellow in half an hour."

"A Bohemian?" said the young man, with
the semblance of a smile at me; for the sister's
compliment affected him pleasantly. She did
not stay to note effects. She understood the
fitness of things, and she had other service to be
rendered elsewhere.

I laid my hand on the bounding heart; I
looked into the burning eyes; and, smiling a not
very genuine smile, I said, "Brother Bohemian,
be so good as to tell me what I ought to know
concerning you."

The poor pent-up heart overflowed, and I
learned in many words what I will narrate in
few. Alfred Eversley was the son of a Louisiana
planter, who had been dead some years. His
plantation lay on the banks of the Mississippi.
The river often slightly changes its course,
"lurching in," as it is called, upon a plantation
and washing it away, while new land is made on
the other side. Hundreds of acres are thus
eaten away, and the unfortunate owner is ruined,
while some more fortunate planter on the opposite
side may be made rich. The elder Eversley
saw his acres thus consumed day by day; cholera
came, and his slaves died; he was ruined; he sold
for almost nothing the wretched remnant of the
plantation. Almost as soon as the thing was done
the river receded, land made rapidly, and the new
owner found himself with a fast-increasing estate.

"My father died of mortification and trouble,"
said the son. (I mentally added, "Perhaps also
of bad whisky, malaria, and quinine.") "He
left nothing," said the son, "for his widow, and
my only inheritance was my college education,
and what runs in my blood:—a passion for the
stage. My mother was a prima donna, when
my father married her, thirty-one years ago.