s not otherwise than of noble birth, the greatest difficulty
of these times was surmounted; and the Prince Bishop, by bestowing upon
the young man a post of honour and rank about his person, in which the
gentle youth could still continue the pursuit of his glorious art, and
march on unhindered in his progress to that eminence which he finally
attained, smoothed the road to the Ober-Amtmann's consent.

On the day of Bertha's marriage, the good Prince Bishop promulgated an
edict, that for the future no one should suffer the punishment of death
for the crime of witchcraft in his dominions. But, after his decease,
the edict again fell into disuse; and the town of Hammelburg, as if the
spirit of Black Claus, the witchfinder, still hovered about its walls,
again commenced to assert its odious reputation, and maintain its
hideous boast, of having burned more witches than any other town in
Germany.

MY LAST COURTSHIP; OR, LIFE IN LOUISIANA.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

A VOYAGE ON THE RED RIVER.

It was on a sultry sunny June morning that I stepped on board the Red
River steamboat. The sun was blazing with unusual power out of its
setting of deep-blue enamel; no wind stirred, only the huge mass of
water in the Mississippi seemed to exhale an agreeable freshness. I gave
a last nod to Richards and his wife who had accompanied me to the shore,
and then went down into the cabin.

I was by no means in the most amiable of humours. Although I had pretty
well forgotten my New York disappointment, two months' contemplation of
the happiness enjoyed by Richards in the society of his young and
charming wife, had done little towards reconciling me to my
bachelorship; and it was with small pleasure that I looked forward to a
return to my solitary plantation, where I could reckon on no better
welcome than the cold, and perhaps scowling, glance of slaves and
hirelings. In no very pleasant mood I walked across the cabin, without
even looking at the persons assembled there, and leaned out of the open
window. I had been some three or four minutes in this position, chewing
the cud of unpleasant reflections, when a friendly voice spoke close to
my ear--

"_Qu'est ce qu'il y a donc, Monsieur Howard? Etes-vous indispose? Allons
voir du monde._"

I turned round. The speaker was a respectable-looking elderly man; but
his features were entirely unknown to me, and I stared at him, a little
astonished at the familiar tone of his address, and at