"Very little about Mary," murmured Dr. Sevier. Yet he was rather pleased than otherwise with the letter. He thrust it into his breast-pocket. In the evening, at his fireside, he drew it out again and re-read it. "Talks as if he had got into an impregnable castle," thought the Doctor, as he gazed into the fire. "Book-keeper to a baker," he muttered, slowly folding the sheet again. It somehow vexed him to see Richling so happy in so low a station. But--"It's the joy of what he has escaped _from_, not _to_," he presently remembered. A fortnight or more elapsed. A distant relative of Dr. Sevier, a man of his own years and profession, was his guest for two nights and a day as he passed through the city, eastward, from an all-summer's study of fevers in Mexico. They were sitting at evening on opposite sides of the library fire, conversing in the leisurely ease of those to whom life is not a novelty. "And so you think of having Laura and Bess come out from Charleston, and keep house for you this winter? Their mother wrote me to that effect." "Yes," said Dr. Sevier. "Society here will be a great delight to them. They will shine. And time will be less monotonous for me. It may suit me, or it may not." "I dare say it may," responded the kinsman, whereas in truth he was very doubtful about it. He added something, a moment later, about retiring for the night, and his host had just said, "Eh?" when a slave, in a five-year-old dress-coat, brought in the card of a person whose name was as well known in New Orleans in those days as St. Patrick's steeple or the statue of Jackson in the old Place d'Armes. Dr. Sevier turned it over and looked for a moment ponderingly upon the domestic. The relative rose. "You needn't go," said Dr. Sevier; but he said "he had intended," etc., and went to his chamber. The visitor entered. He was a dark, slender, iron gray man, of finely cut, regular features, and seeming to be much more deeply wrinkled than on scrutiny he proved to be. One quickly saw that he was full of reposing energy. He gave the feeling of your being very near some weapon, of dreadful efficiency, ready for instant use whenever needed. His clothing fitted him neatly; his long, gray mustache was the only thing that hung loosely about him; his boots were fine. If he had told a child that all his muscles and sinews were wrapped with fine steel wire the child would have believed him, and continued to sit on his knee all the same. It is said, by those who still survive him, that in dreadful places and moments the flash of his fist was as quick, as irresistible, and as all-sufficient, as lightning, yet that years would sometimes pass without its ever being lifted. Dr. Sevier lifted his slender length out of his easy-chair, and bowed with severe gravity. "Good-evening, sir," he said, and silently thought, "Now, what can Smith Izard possibly want with me?"