BY THE BAYOU ST. JOHN

The Bayou St. John slowly makes its dark-hued way through reeds
and rushes, high banks and flat slopes, until it casts itself
into the turbulent bosom of Lake Pontchartrain. It is dark, like
the passionate women of Egypt; placid, like their broad brows;
deep, silent, like their souls. Within its bosom are hidden
romances and stories, such as were sung by minstrels of old.
From the source to the mouth is not far distant, visibly
speaking, but in the life of the bayou a hundred heart-miles
could scarce measure it. Just where it winds about the northwest
of the city are some of its most beautiful bits, orange groves on
one side, and quaint old Spanish gardens on the other. Who cares
that the bridges are modern, and that here and there pert
boat-houses rear their prim heads? It is the bayou, even though
it be invaded with the ruthless vandalism of the improving idea,
and can a boat-house kill the beauty of a moss-grown centurion of
an oak with a history as old as the city? Can an iron bridge
with tarantula piers detract from the song of a mocking-bird in a
fragrant orange grove? We know that farther out, past the
Confederate Soldiers' Home,--that rose-embowered, rambling place
of gray-coated, white-haired old men with broken hearts for a
lost cause,--it flows, unimpeded by the faintest conception of
man, and we love it all the more that, like the Priestess of
Isis, it is calm-browed, even in indignity.

To its banks at the end of Moss Street, one day there came a man
and a maiden. They were both tall and lithe and slender, with