tantly and imperfectly that out in the
Gulf of Mexico, it is said, one comes upon patches of the Missouri of
the most jaundiced, angry hue.

The sombre majesty of the stream was quite lost upon Mrs. Sykes, who saw
in it only "an ugly, wicked-looking river, with a lot of dirty-white
villages along its mud banks." Her attention was given to the passengers
and the clerk,--especially the latter. "A clerk that talks to the ladies
in the cabin about literature and the dramar! Only fency!" she said to
Miss Noel. "And such comical blackies, that the ladies call 'aunty,' and
that call me 'honey' and 'child.' As like as not you'll see a snag
coming up through the bottom of the boat presently, and you had better
try one of the life-preservers on and see how it works; though, after
all, we may be blown up instead. Of course we are racing. I am sure of
it."

"Dear, dear! How _very_ dreadful! How did you discover that? It should
really be made known. I shall speak to the captain. I really can't
consent to being _raced_ with," replied Miss Noel, who did not make
sufficient allowance for Mrs. Sykes's love of the sensational. "Robert
must call a meeting and protest, or something."

She went to look for Sir Robert, whom she found walking about on deck.
He had been reading all the afternoon, and his mind was full of La
Salle, and De Soto, and poor Evangeline, so cruelly near to Gabriel and
happiness once, only to drift away from both forever. So large was his
grasp of any subject that the imaginative phases of a situation appealed
to him as powerfully as the practical, and he was not the man to take
the Mississippi without its associations, any more than he would have
done the Hudson or the Sierras without Irving and Bret Harte. So now he
was pacing backward and forward under the stars, thinking of these
things, and in no mood for bearding the captain in his cabin; and,
having calmed Miss Noel's fears, he stayed on deck until very late,
enjoying his cigar and surroundings.

When they got low enough down to come upon levees and see that the river
was actually higher than the land, the questions of inundation,
protection, blue-clay banks, dikes, sluices, crevasses, water-gates,
sediment, currents, swept in upon Sir Robert, and he was still working
at them when they reached New Orleans. Fresh interests and employments
now awaited him, in which he was soon absorbed, head over ears. Like
olives, New Orleans has a flavor of its own, so deci