etting) the Poydras
market. The father and mother and their kindred and companions in long
past misfortunes and sorrows had grown to wealth and standing among the
German-Americans of New Orleans and Lafayette. The little girl cousin of
Salome Mueller, who as a child of the same age had been her playmate on
shipboard at the Helder and in crossing the Atlantic, and who looked so
much like Salome, was a woman of thirty, the wife of Karl Rouff.

One summer day she was on some account down near the lower limits of New
Orleans on or near the river front, where the population was almost wholly
a lower class of Spanish people. Passing an open door her eye was suddenly
arrested by a woman of about her own age engaged in some humble service
within with her face towards the door.

Madame Karl paused in astonishment. The place was a small drinking-house,
a mere _cabaret_; but the woman! It was as if her aunt Dorothea, who had
died on the ship twenty-five years before, stood face to face with her
alive and well. There were her black hair and eyes, her olive skin, and
the old, familiar expression of countenance that belonged so distinctly to
all the Hillsler family. Madame Karl went in.

"My name," the woman replied to her question, "is Mary." And to another
question, "No; I am a yellow girl. I belong to Mr. Louis Belmonti, who
keeps this 'coffee-house.' He has owned me for four or five years. Before
that? Before that, I belonged to Mr. John Fitz Mueller, who has the
saw-mill down here by the convent. I always belonged to him." Her accent
was the one common to English-speaking slaves.

But Madame Karl was not satisfied. "You are not rightly a slave. Your name
is Mueller. You are of pure German blood. I knew your mother. I know you.
We came to this country together on the same ship, twenty-five years ago."

"No," said the other; "you must be mistaking me for some one else that I
look like."

But Madame Karl: "Come with me. Come up into Lafayette and see if I do not
show you to others who will know you the moment they look at you."

The woman enjoyed much liberty in her place and was able to accept this
invitation. Madame Karl took her to the home of Frank and Eva Schuber.

Their front door steps were on the street. As Madame Karl came up to them
Eva stood in the open door much occupied with her approach, for she had
not seen her for two years. Another woman, a stranger, was with Madame
Karl. As they reached the threshold and th