I visited the French market, and drank a cup of the famed and fragrant Mocha; went to its cemeteries, which, in their flowery beauty, robbed death of its terrors; took a drive upon the shell road to Lake Pontchartrain; walked in Jackson Square; and, indeed, visited all localities of note in and around the city.

Should my curious readers wish to know how I could enjoy and describe all these, the answer will be found in my companion and friend, Hattie, who, with her wonderful adaptation and ingenuity, added to her remarkable descriptive powers, vividly pictured all to me, and, through an unwritten, indescribable language known only to ourselves, it became a system of mental telegraphy and soul language.

There is in Europe a blind man, whose name I cannot recall, who is led from Court to Court and from palace to palace by a frail young girl, and between these there exists the same mystic yet unerring language.  What this little fairy is to him such was Hattie Hudson to me, or, to use the language of another: 

               “She was my sight;
    The ocean to the river of my thoughts,
    Which terminated all.”

CHAPTER XV.

    “Devotion wafts the mind above,
    But Heaven itself descends in love;
    A feeling from the Godhead caught. 
    To wean from earth each sordid thought;
    A ray of him who formed the whole,
    A glory circling round the soul.”

Leaving New Orleans with the fervid fire which the warm hearts of its people had kindled still burning in my breast, and the many memories of its fragrance and sunlight, and beauty, forever embalmed and enshrined in my heart, I crossed in one of the great gulf steamers to Mobile, the home of the celebrated Madame Le Verte; but, as her continued travels call her so often away from the city in which she so gracefully and so heartfully dispensed the hospitalities of home-life, and opened wide her doors to the stranger, I was not privileged to meet her; nor can I note many of the manifold celebrities of the city.  I can only say I found it as beautiful as a dream; its skies of sweet Italian softness; its waters clear and pure as “Pyerian Springs;” its winds gentle as the whisper of an Angel; its flowers gorgeous in tint and redolent with fragrance; the spirits of its people attuned to harmony with their beautiful surroundings, and overflowing with generous sentiment.

Without the slightest intimation upon my own part, I was presented with passes over the Mobile and Ohio Railway, by which I went to Cairo, and thence by the magnet, which so often drew my spirit toward the pole to Chicago.

After a brief respite and rest I went to Minnesota, in whose life-giving climate I spent the summer.  Passing over the oft-told tale of financial success, I must address myself to those who—­