On the night of the Chalmetta's terrible disaster, a man wrapped in a camlet cloak left the cottage, and approached the landing-place. In one hand he carried a glass lantern, and in the other a double-barrelled gun. Descending the steps to the rude pier of logs, he drew the boat in-shore and seated himself in the stern-sheets. Unloosing the stern-line, which alone held her, the boat was borne on by the rapid stream. The helm the occupant handled with a masterly skill, and in a moment the little bark swept through the half-hid opening into the broad river. Placing the helm amid-ships, the man went forward, and, pulling the proper line, brought the masts to their upright position. He then inserted the iron keys which kept them in their place, and hoisted the sails. By this time the boat had drifted to the lower extremity of the island; so, bracing her sharp up, he stood away across the river. Tacking before he reached the swift channel, which flowed close in shore, he laid the boat's course up the stream. The wind was blowing fresh, and, notwithstanding the contending force of the current, the boat careened to her task, and made very good progress through the water. While the gallant little bark pursues her way, we will introduce her skipper to the reader. Dr. Vaudelier was about fifty years of age. He was descended from one of the old French families of Louisiana; and had been, for nearly thirty years, a practising physician in the city of New Orleans, during which time he had accumulated a very handsome fortune. At the age of twenty-five he had been married to a lady, whose only recommendations were her personal beauty and her fashionable accomplishments. Her vanity had disgusted him, and her uncontrollable temper had embittered to its very dregs the cup of his existence. Being naturally of a gloomy and melancholy temperament, this unfortunate union had rendered his life almost insupportable. Domestic happiness, to which he had looked forward with high-wrought anticipations, proved, in his case, to have no foundation. He was disappointed. His dream of home and its blessings faded away, and was supplanted by a terrible reality. He grew more and more melancholy. But there was a solace, which saved him from absolute misery. Two children--a boy and a girl--blessed his otherwise unhallowed union. The education of these children was the only joy his home afforded; but even this to his misanthropic mind could not compensate for his matrimonial disappointment. Years passed away; the son was sent to college, from which, to the anguish of his father, he was expelled for gross misconduct. The young man returned to New Orleans, and became one of the most dissolute and abandoned characters of the city. Dr. Vaudelier disowned him, and sunk the deeper in his melancholy.