her ribbons as strips of coupons. Thus she was always an agreeable
spectacle.

So time flew, and the sun of the sixth of November gleamed across the
scaly backs of the alligators of Bayou La Farouche.

In three days I was to be made happy with the possession of one
hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) on the nail,--excuse the homely
expression,--great expectations for the future, and the hand of my
Saccharissa.

For these I exchanged the name and social position of a Chylde, and my
own, I trust, not unattractive person.

I deemed that I gave myself away dirt-cheap,--excuse again the
colloquialism; the transaction seems to require such a phrase,--for
there is no doubt that Mr. Mellasys was greatly objectionable. It was
certainly very illogical; but his neighbors who owned slaves insisted
upon turning up their noses at Mellasys, because he still kept up his
slave-pen on Touchpitchalas Street, New Orleans. Besides,--and here
again the want of logic seems to culminate into rank absurdity,--he was
viewed with a purely sentimental abhorrence by some, because he had
precluded a reclaimed fugitive from repeating his evasion by roasting
the soles of his feet before a fire until the fellow actually died. The
fact, of coarse, was unpleasant, and the loss considerable,--a prime
field-hand, with some knowledge of carpentry and a good performer on
the violin,--but evasions must be checked, and I cannot see why Mr.
Mellasys's method was too severe. Mr. Mellasys was also considered a
very unscrupulous person in financial transactions,--indeed, what would
be named in some communities a swindler; and I have heard it whispered