by Saccharissa and myself during our journey to the
sunny South has passed out of my possession. Its pages overflowed with
tenderness. How beautiful were our dreams of the balls and _soirees_ we
were to give! How we discussed the style of our furniture, our carriage,
and our coachman! How I fed Saccharissa's soul with adulation! She
was ugly, she was vulgar, she was jealous, she was base, she had had
flirtations of an intimate character with scores; but she was rich, and
I made great allowances.

At last we arrived at Bayou La Farouche.

I cannot state that the locality is an attractive one. Its land scenery
is composed of alligators and mud in nearly equal proportions.

I never beheld there my fancy realized of a band of gleeful negroes
hoeing cane to the music of the banjo. There are no wild bandanna-trees,
and no tame ones, either. The slaves of Mr. Mellasys never danced,
except under the whip of a very noisome person who acted as overseer.
There were no sleek and sprightly negresses in gay turbans, and no iced
_eau sucre_. Canaan was cursed with religious rigor on the Mellasys
plantation at Bayou La Farouche.

All this time Mellasys Plickaman had been my _bete noir_.

I know nothing of politics. Were our country properly constituted,
I should be in the House of Peers. The Chylde family is of sublime
antiquity, and I am its head in America. But, alas! we have no
hereditary legislators; and though I feel myself competent to wear the
strawberry-leaves, or even to sit upon a throne, I have not been willing
to submit to the unsavory contacts of American political life. Mr.
Mellasys Plickaman took advantage of my ignorance.

When several gentlemen of the neighborhood were calling upon me in the
absence of Mr. Mellasys, my defeated rival introduced the subject of
politics.

"I suppose you are a good Democrat, Mr. Chylde?" said one of the
strangers.

"No, I thank you," replied I, sportively,--meaning, of course, that
they should understand I was a good Aristocrat.

"Who's your man for President?" my interlocutor continued, rather
roughly.

I had heard in conversation, without giving the fact much attention,
that an election for President was to take place in a few days. These
struggles of commonplace individuals for the privilege of residing in
a vulgar town like Washington were without interest to me. So I
answered,--

"Oh, any of them. They are all alike to me."

"You don't mean to say," here another of th