, or excite a pang
of envy in her breast; for she had learned to regard a cottage with
content as better than wealth and pomp with pride and misery to distract
the spirit.

The morrow dawned beautifully. Round and red the sun arose beyond the
far, green prairie, when the mules and carriages were brought to the
door, and the little party of travellers recommenced their journey.
Fred. Milder cast a lingering glance after the pretty Josephine, as she
wished him a delightful tour up the country, and bade him not forget to
call and give her an account of all his adventures on his return. He
promised faithfully not to forget, and, with kind adieus, the party
moved on their way.

Josephine sat down after her usual morning tasks were completed, and
indited a long epistle to her cousin Alice; giving a general description
of her Texan home; not failing to mention her mother's happy recovery
from nerves, and Susette's marriage with a promising young planter; also
the pleasant visit they had enjoyed from Mr. Milder; and ended by saying
she hoped another season, when papa was a little richer, to make her
long-contemplated visit to the north.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Youth, love and beauty, all were hers,
Why should she not be happy?"

Where would you like to go now, reader? We are desirous to take you by
the path that will lead through this story by the shortest cut, and, as
we dare not doubt but that will be the course of all others most
grateful to your tastes and feelings, we'll clear Texas at a bound, for
there'll blow a whistling "Norther" there soon, we apprehend, and that
would tangle our hair worse than it is tangled now, and we have not had
time to comb it since this story commenced. So, imagine "Effie," dear
reader, with her brown locks wisped up in the most unbecoming manner
possible, a calico morning-gown wrapped loosely about her, and not over
clean, her fingers grimmed with pencil-dust, and her nose too,
perhaps--for she has a fashion of rubbing that useful organ, for ideas,
or something else, we know not what.

Just imagine this, reader, and if you don't throw down the story in
actual disgust, you'll be more anxious to get through it than we are
even.

Now away with episode, and here are we in the fair "Crescent City"
again, at the palace-like residence of Augustus Lester, Esq. The lord of
the mansion is at home, reclining on a silken sofa, which is d