Canal street looked lonely and deserted, as did the stores and shops lining either side of the broad, aristocratic street. The material for a gay, fashionable promenade was all there; only the people were wanting to make it such. True, there were groups occasionally to be seen at the counters of the shops, but in most such cases a black, shining face protruded from under the jaunty little bonnet, perched on a mass of wool, augmented and enlarged by additional sheep's-wool, dyed black. One of these groups dispersed suddenly one day, vacating the store with all the signs of the highest, strongest indignation. The tactless storekeeper, who had not yet quite comprehended the importance and standing of these useful members of society, had unwittingly offended an ancient, black dame. She had asked to see some silks, and the shopkeeper had very innocently remarked, "Here, aunty, is something very nice for you." "I wish to deform you, sir," replied Aunt Ebony, bridling, "that my name is Miss Johnson." With this she seized her parasol and marched out of the store, followed by her whole retinue, rustling their silks, in highest dudgeon. On my way to the ferry, when leaving New Orleans for Texas, I saw something that roused all the "Southern" feeling in me. Two colored policemen were bullying a white drayman, near the Custom-house. I must confess I wanted to jump out, shake them well, take their clubs from them, and throw them into the Mississippi (the clubs, I mean, not the precious "niggers"). What my father would have said, could he have seen it, I don't know; the grass had long grown over his grave, and covered with pitying mantle the scars that disappointments and a hopeless struggle to accomplish purposes, aimed all too high, leave on every heart. As the cars carried us away from the city, and gave us glimpses of the calm water, and the villas, and orange-groves beyond, there came to me, once more, "The tender grace of a day that is dead." It was just a soft, balmy day as this, years ago, when we lay all day long in a bayou, where the water was smooth and clear as a mirror, and the rich grass came down to the water's edge; and through the grove of orange and magnolia, the golden sunlight sifted down on the white walls and slender pillars of the planter's cottage. Stalwart negroes sang their plaintive melodies as they leisurely pursued their occupation, and birds, brighter in plumage than our cold, German fatherland could ever show us, were hovering around the field and fluttering among the growing cotton.