Scarcely heeding the ruin around her, Zulima walked on toward the city; her delicate slippers were speedily saturated with wet, and at another time that tenderly-nurtured frame must have yielded to the discomfort and fatigue of her unusual exertion. But she had an object to attain—an object which depended wholly upon herself; and when a woman’s heart and soul is in an effort, when was her strength known to give way? The old cathedral clock was striking six when Zulima entered New Orleans; a few negroes were abroad, going to or from the markets, and around the wharves arose a confused sound as of a hive of bees preparing to swarm. At another time Zulima might have been startled at finding herself the only white female abroad in a great city, but now she only drew the folds of black lace more closely over her bonnet and walked on. With her own hands she mailed the letter which conveyed, as it were, her soul to the husband who seemed to have forgotten her. A sigh broke up from her heart as the folded paper slid from her hand into the yawning mail-bag, and then, with a feeling of relief born of her own exertions, she turned away. “I have trusted no one; he will get my letter now,” she murmured over and over again during her rapid walk home, and with that vivid reaction so common to imaginative natures, she became almost happy in the sweet hopes that this reflection aroused to life again. Oh, it is so difficult for the young to feel absolute despair or absolute resignation; both are the fruit of good or evil old age. Unmolested, as she had left it, Zulima stole back to her chamber. Weary, and yet with a heart more free than it had been for weeks, she flung off her damp garments, and lying down, slept sweetly for an hour. Zulima dreamed that she was sitting with her husband beneath the great magnolia-tree; her babe lay upon the turf laughing gleefully, and, with its little hands in the air, grasping after the summer insects as they flashed overhead. All at once a whirlwind rushed out, as it were, from the depths of the sky, overwhelming her with its violence. She strove to reach her child, but fell upon her face to the earth, shrieking wildly to her husband to save her and it. Then fell upon her one of those dark, fantastic clouds that make our dreams so fragmentary. She felt the magnolia upheave under her, and scatter down the fresh earth from its roots till she was half buried. Husband and child both were gone, leaving her prostrate and almost dead, to battle her way through the storm alone—alone! Zulima awoke with these words upon her lips. It was but a dream. Louisa had entered the chamber and was examining the wet garments that her mistress had flung off, muttering suspiciously to herself as she saw the soiled slippers and other evidences of an early walk.