for even the doctor there is in harness for life. Southern women, you
know, proverbially survive their husbands; and, as the suttee is out of
fashion, they sometimes have to marry Yankees as a _dernier ressort_ of
desperation! Of course, there are occasional sad exceptions"--looking
grave for a moment, and glancing at the black hat-band on the Panama hat
he was nursing on his knees, so as to let the breeze blow through his
silky, silver-streaked black hair--"but--but--in short, why will you all
look so doleful? Isn't it bad enough to feel so?"

"The loveliest fade earliest, we all know," and the tears were in his
honest, frivolous eyes, dashed away in the next moment as he exclaimed,
eagerly, "Why, there goes the Lamarque equipage, as I live! I had
forgotten all about it. The pleasantest woman in Savannah, young or old,
is to be your _compagnon de voyage_, Miss Harz, and the most determined
widower on record her escort; a perfect John Rogers of a man, with nine
little motherless children, her brother Raguet ('Rag,' as we called him
at school, on account of his prim stiffness, so that 'limber as a rag'
seemed a most preposterous saying in his vicinity). He is handsome,
however, and intelligent, a perfect gentleman, but on the mourners'
bench just now, like some others you know of"--heaving a deep sigh. "His
wife, poor thing, died last autumn--a pretty girl in her day was
Cornelia Huger! I was a little weak in that direction once
myself--before--that is, before--O doctor! what a trouble it is to
remember!"

And again the small, fleet hand was dashed across the twinkling, tearful
eyes of this April day of a middle-aged man of the world--this modern
Mercutio--merry and mournful at once, as if there were two sides to his
every mood, like the famous shield of story. When we reached the quay
the Kosciusko was already getting up her steam, and, in less than an