“I do not suppose,” replied the visitor, “there is a more delightful climate in the world.”

“Ah-h-h!”—­both ladies at once, in a low, gracious tone of acknowledgment.

“I thing Louisiana is a paradize-me!” said Aurora.  “W’ere you goin’ fin’ sudge a h-air?” She respired a sample of it.  “W’ere you goin’ fin’ sudge a so ridge groun’?  De weed’ in my bag yard is twenny-five feet ’igh!”

“Ah! maman!”

“Twenty-six!” said Aurora, correcting herself.  “W’ere you fin’ sudge a reever lag dad Mississippi? On dit,” she said, turning to Clotilde, “que ses eaux ont la propriete de contribuer meme a multiplier l’espece humaine—­ha, ha, ha!”

Clotilde turned away an unmoved countenance to hear Frowenfeld.

Frowenfeld had contracted a habit of falling into meditation whenever the French language left him out of the conversation.

“Yes,” he said, breaking a contemplative pause, “the climate is too comfortable and the soil too rich,—­though I do not think it is entirely on their account that the people who enjoy them are so sadly in arrears to the civilized world.”  He blushed with the fear that his talk was bookish, and felt grateful to Clotilde for seeming to understand his speech.

“W’ad you fin’ de rizzon is, ’Sieur Frowenfel’?” she asked.

“I do not wish to philosophize,” he answered.

“Mais, go hon.” “Mais, go ahade,” said both ladies, settling themselves.

“It is largely owing,” exclaimed Frowenfeld, with sudden fervor, “to a defective organization of society, which keeps this community, and will continue to keep it for an indefinite time to come, entirely unprepared and disinclined to follow the course of modern thought.”

“Of coze,” murmured Aurora, who had lost her bearings almost at the first word.

“One great general subject of thought now is human rights,—­universal human rights.  The entire literature of the world is becoming tinctured with contradictions of the dogmas upon which society in this section is built.  Human rights is, of all subjects, the one upon which this community is most violently determined to hear no discussion.  It has pronounced that slavery and caste are right, and sealed up the whole subject.  What, then, will they do with the world’s literature?  They will coldly decline to look at it, and will become, more and more as the world moves on, a comparatively illiterate people.”

“Bud, ’Sieur Frowenfel’,” said Clotilde, as Frowenfeld paused—­Aurora was stunned to silence,—­“de Unitee State’ goin’ pud doze nigga’ free, aind it?”

Frowenfeld pushed his hair hard back.  He was in the stream now, and might as well go through.