he had crossed the river in the night, and was
on the other side.

Dr. Sevier's experienced horse halted of his own will to let a
procession pass. In the carriage at its head the physician saw the
little rector, sitting beside a man of German ecclesiastical appearance.
Behind it followed a majestic hearse, drawn by black-plumed and
caparisoned horses,--four of them. Then came a long line of red-shirted
firemen; for he in the hearse had been an "exempt." Then a further line
of big-handed, white-gloved men in beavers and regalias; for he had
been also a Freemason and an Odd-fellow. Then another column, of
emotionless-visaged German women, all in bunchy black gowns, walking out
of time to the solemn roll and pulse of the muffled drums, and the
brazen peals of the funeral march. A few carriages closed the long
line. In the first of them the waiting Doctor marked, with a sudden
understanding of all, the pale face of John Richling, and by his side
the widow who had been forty years a wife,--weary and red with weeping.
The Doctor took off his hat.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

RISE UP, MY LOVE, MY FAIR ONE.

The summer at length was past, and the burning heat was over and gone.
The days were refreshed with the balm of a waning October. There had
been no fever. True, the nights were still aglare with torches, and the
street echoes kept awake by trumpet notes and huzzas, by the tramp of
feet and the delicate hint of the bell-ringing; and men on the stump and
off it; in the "wigwams;" along the sidewalks, as they came forth,
wiping their mouths, from the free-lunch counters, and on the
curb-stones and "flags" of Carondelet street, were saying things to make
a patriot's heart ache. But contrariwise, in that same Carondelet
street, and hence in all the streets of the big, scattered town, the
most prosperous commercial year--they measure from September to
September--that had ever risen upon New Orleans had closed its distended
record, and no one knew or dreamed that, for nearly a quarter of a
century to come, the proud city would never see the equal of that golden
year just gone. And so, away yonder among the great lakes on the
northern border of the anxious but hopeful country, Mary was calling,
calling, like an unseen bird piping across the fields for its mate, to
know if she and the one little nestling might not come to hers.

And at length, after two or three unexpected contingencies had caused
delays of one week after another