struction was recognized as a living force, had succeeded the same joyous outburst of reviving life, which was witnessed in the first six months following the surrender of the Southern arinies.

The negroes, too, were more industrious, more faithful to contracts, and contained among them many outspoken Democrats.

Judge Foley was more popular among them than ex-Postmaster Colwood had ever been. The enforced emigration of that gentleman to the North-West by reason of his difficulties with the money-order accounts of his office, had resulted in the appointment of our quondam friend, Miss Ann Duvall, to the vacancy. The cotton acreage of the incoming year was reported to be greater than in any year before or since the war. Northern capitalists were opening up the coal and iron interests, and the price of labor had risen fifty per cent. in twelve months.

Mr. Pepper, the owner of Moran's old home, had divided the plantation into a score of small farms, which were settled by the families of mechanics, who were thrown out of employment in Northern factories in consequence of the panic of 1873, but had laid away something for a rainy day before that crash

came.

He rode over the property the day after his arrival and cared for the dressing of the family grave-yard. The ruined brick walls of the homestead had been removed to make chimneys for a dozen frame cottages of neat design, which stretched along the base of the ridge encircling the valley. The old family servants had removed to the railroad towns-some to Dunham, some to Chattanooga, some to Atlanta, which was now evidencing in a nut shell the general throb of energy beating through all the South, save the three States of Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina, yet cursed with high taxes and unpopular government.

Moran caught the infection of industry, and having the best claim as heir to Judge Foley's abandoned practice, opened a law office in his native county town a few days after his return. Fees small but plenty enough for his comfortable support soon

came to him, and he quickly established a good name for neat office work, for which he was indebted to the exact drill he had subjected himself to during the year of his consulship. He found the Krooms and all their neighbors to be good clients, as the iron and coal fever had its centre in the mountains that lay around and beyond the distillery premises of which specific mention was made in the early chapters of this book.

There was much work therefore thrown into his hands in the way of examining titles, furnishing abstracts of the same, drafting deeds, and drawing petitions for the sale of minors' and partnership interests in lands on which the coal men had made offers.

Gilbert Kroom, still hale and hearty, had by a sudden stroke of good luck grown to be one of the rich men of the county. His mineral interest in one tract of wild mountain land had been sold before Moran's return home to a Pittsburgh company, for the snug sum of forty thousand dollars, and if the iron ores on other tracts, which he still retained, proved to be of as fine quality as the tests seemed to indicate, Gilbert said he should have more money than he would know what to do with.

Good Dr. Roberts and wife were not to be satisfied with anything short of Archie making his home with them till he had a home of his own, and the expression of his wish and intention to apply for confirmation at the coming visitation of the Bishop, gratified that excellent couple more than the reader would believe. Young Holt brought the brass band around to the rectory on the first night of his taking quarters there, and after Mrs. Roberts's excellent cake and wine had been set out, quite a charming impromptu house-warming was had in Moran's honor.

Old animosities were buried out of sight, and he was once more a boy surrounded by the faces of loved school-fellowsalbeit now bearded and in some cases care-worn-while over the good priest's wine, adventures of village chivalry were dwelt upon and curious questions about Europe asked of him, who rejoiced to feel once more the throbbings of a leadership, which had been cheerfully allowed on the river and at town ball, and

which he now for the first time in years thought might again be claimed without a sense of shame to country forbidding the demand.

So in love was he with his welcome, that he listened to Dr. Hasslett murder Latin terms during one-half of the following forenoon, and shook hands with Miss Emma Frost very cordially, when he met that lady on her evening promenade in search of exercise and the latest village gossip.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HANDS ALL 'ROUND.

It is the fashion of all Southern youth of means to take their bridal tours to the Northern cities. We hold this to be a great mistake, unless perhaps the marriage occurs in the summer season, which among folks of fashion would be a greater mistake still.

If the ambition is to be a traveller in Shakespeare's sense, "one, who sells his own lands to see other men's," why of course the Northern tour can in that way be justified; but there is really no finer pleasure city in America than New Orleans, right here at our doors, and such I am glad to record was the opinion of Mr. Archibald Moran, the leading figure in this story.

That gentleman, in the latter part of February, 1876, went only as far north as Petersburg, where Ada Cleburne was made his wife, without more ado than a pretty talk about Isaac and Rebecca, which all good Presbyterian preachers (and Ada would be married by no other sort of divine) have at their fingers' ends, but which Archie thought lacked strangely in the elements which should go to make up that semi-sacrament, which in his eyes holy matrimony was. The ceremony over, whether well or illy done, the pair took the Southern train for New Or

leans, where they duly arrived in the midst of the Mardi-Gras carnival, a session of the Legislature engaged in the impeachment of Governor Kellogg, a Southern State's fair, whose orator was Governor Hendricks, then intriguing for a place on the Democratic ticket, which this same New Orleans was to pluck from his enjoyment a year later, and in the midst of an international pigeon match of which the much-telegraphed-about Bogardus was to be champion.

Horse races, masked balls, operas and theatres were secondary sights. All the great valley had its representatives. Mexico and Texas were there. Chicago roughs, St. Louis Shylocks with the sweet German accent, young bloods from Red River, were found at the same faro table.

The Indianapolis politician "laid pipe in the St. Charles parlors under the suggestion of his boss plumber from Austin. Ballet girls from Australia danced on the same boards with, but in rivalry of, the latest graduates from Munich. The levee was alive with trade, the promenades alive with pleasure. Never had Moran conceived it possible to so mingle the energy of the new world with that systematic study of pleasure which characterizes the old world. Who after this will say his bridal tour was not wisely chosen. New Orleans! what a spell in the name, since the days of Talbot and the holy maid! And leaving the beautiful memories of the Loire and its vine-embowered chateaus of the ancien régime, how the fascination abides with us through the years of Spanish, and French, and Saxon domination at the mouth of the Mississippi.

Here great old Hickory Jackson might have brought his bride after that half run-away marriage at Natchez, with old father-in-law Donelson aiding and abetting (so much was he in love with Andy's pluck), while Robards, the husband, was taking legal advice in Kentucky woods as to the virtue of a divorce granted by a Legislature at Richmond. Far apart were the actors in that drama, in the days when steam was in its swaddling clothes, and the docile nature of lightning had not been 1ecognized. Here sturdy, valorous and kind-hearted Old Abe

had often brought his flat boat from the head-waters of the Illinois to traffic with traders from the coffee country, and to exchange jokes with his only rivals in the art-the men from Arkansas.

Lafitte, Lopez, Walker, pirates and fillibusters innumerable, destitute of all ties of country, loved to call this place home. Through it had poured the great tide of adventurers who settled Texas, the great tide of volunteer soldiery who had annexed the Pacific slope to the Republic. The lion-hearted Farragut had fought here, the eloquent Palmer still preached here. Princely city, sore has been thy recent afflictions-cursed by Sheridan's insolence, by Packard's brutal bullying, by Kellogg's Greek gifts, by Wells's devil-born patience in evil doing, by Warmouth's and Wheeler's friendship. Enchanting even in dissoluteness a land where a coward or an ugly woman is a curiosity, where you pull oranges off a mile of trees overhanging the streets, where you are sealed up in a brick oven when dead, and your requiem chanted by singers from Italy, where the rule of a Tweed or a Sheppard is felt to be a personal disgrace, even by the Arabs of society-O princely city, may the assured reoccupancy of thy pristine state be no longer delayed, but come quickly, bearing with it blessings beyond count to all the Southland!

So pleasantly fled the days that a fortnight was gone ere Mr. and Mrs. Moran were recalled to a sense of the fact that with all its charms, the capital of the South-West was no place of permanent settlement for a village lawyer recently married to a city woman of expensive even if sensible tastes, and so one evening, the last of their stay, seated on the river bank at Carrollton, one of the finest of the city's suburbs, these two sipped their French coffee and mapped out plans for their married life. Why not settle in Petersburg, dear? I am sure there is no young lawyer there as smart as yourself, and Buddy can throw you ever so much practice," said the young wife, "and besides you can afford to wait till you are well established, and live with mamma till that time," she continued.

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