To all of this I most heartily agreed, and I was more happy and lightsome than a butterfly. We came out before the congregation, and another warm kiss and embrace under the trees, then mother steered away homewards for the old French mansion, and I took my way to my lodgings, where the people received me with great affection. I had told them that I was married, and wore a gold ring to that effect, because without giving them that needful piece of information, young beaux are bad for coming around seventeen-year-old girls, and I did not wish any of the kind New Orleans flunkeys to be coming around me with any of their sweet kind of foolishness. When I got into my bed-room, I found the flowers of the Sunny South perfuming the whole place like cologne, and I slept like the angels there. Seven days and nights came and went. Mother and I met one another as often as it was discreet and prudent for us to do. There was not the remotest suspicion of her approaching departure—much less of the direction which we meant to take. Like Tom and myself leaving Riverside Hall, our plans were well-laid and matured, our hearts were stout and brave within us, and we carried things out with a bold front. As the New York passenger boat Columbia lay at her pier with steam up in readiness for her departure on the following Wednesday night, while the streets were full of horses, wagons, porters, passengers, and all the rest of it; while late passengers were hurrying into the office to get their tickets for New York, and boys were shouting the latest edition of the city papers, two ladies in half mourning and heavily veiled, drove up in a carriage, alighted in haste, had a heavy leather trunk carried on board, and the elder of the two (a lady seemingly about thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age) made for the ticket office and procured tickets for two, and a corresponding cabin for New York. These two ladies, the reader will understand, were my own dear mother and myself. No notice was taken of us in any way. All was noise, bustle and confusion about the Columbia. We were shown to our cabin like the rest, and felt at home at once. It was growing dusk, the last bell was rung, and with anxious hearts and high-beating hopes we cut loose from the shore, and plunged out into the great river. The night being warm and balmy, as is usual in the Sunny South, mother and I went on deck to see our own departure, and to watch the passing vessels coming to and going from the port of New Orleans. Here, in taking leave of the "Queen City of the South," as the metropolis of Louisiana is called, I must say that I was most delightfully impressed. I had been so very kindly treated on all hands, and there was so much to charm the senses about this famous French city. As for mother, the depth of the ocean was as nothing compared with the depth of her contentment at getting away with her beloved Beulah, the separation from whom had given her so much sorrow.