From these chapters all about men I return with pleasure to my young lady, rebel though she is. Before she had been twenty-four hours in New Orleans she discovered that it was by no means so delightful a place as of old, and she had become quite indignant at the federals, to whom she attributed all this gloom and desolation. Why not? Adam and Eve were well enough until the angel of the Lord drove them out of Paradise. The felon has no unusual troubles, so far as he can see, except those which are raised for him by the malignity of judges and the sheriff. Miss Ravenel was informed by the few citizens whom she met, that New Orleans was doing bravely until the United States Government illegally blocked up the river, and then piratically seized the city, frightening away its inhabitants and paralyzing its business and nullifying its prosperity. One old gentleman assured her that Farragut and Butler had behaved in the most unconstitutional manner. At all events somebody had spoiled the gayety of the place, and she was quite miserable and even pettish about it. "Isn't it dreadful!" she said, bursting into tears as she threw herself into the arms of her aunt, Mrs. Larue, who, occupying the next house, had rushed in to receive the restored exile. She had few sympathies with this relation, and never before felt a desire to overflow into her bosom; but any face which had been familiar to her in the happy by-gone times was a passport to her sympathies in this hour of affliction. "C'est effrayant," replied Mrs. Larue. "But you are out of fashion to weep. We have given over that feminine weakness, _ma chère_. That fountain is dry. The inhumanities of these Yankee Vandals have driven us into a despair too profound for tears. We do not flatter Beast Butler with a sob."