He came well furnished with letters of introduction from powerful men in England to planters and merchants of New Orleans; but though he met with much politeness and hospitality the Louisianians shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads when he revealed his opinions and tried to win their approval of his plans. They looked upon the handsome young engineer with a feeling something akin to pity. He was an enthusiast, and, like all enthusiasts, no doubt a little of a madman. One of the first houses at which Gilbert Margrave presented himself was that of Augustus Horton. He found Adelaide and her aunt alone in their favorite morning room; one lounging in her rocking-chair, the other, as usual, busy at an embroidery frame. The young creole looked very pretty in her loose and floating morning robe of India muslin, richly trimmed with Valenciennes lace and peach-colored ribbons. Her hair was arranged in clusters of short ringlets, which trembled in the summer breeze, wafted in through the Venetian blinds of the veranda. As the name of Gilbert Margrave was announced, the animated girl sprang from her easy-chair, and, flinging down her book ran forward to receive the long-looked-for visitor. "At last!" she exclaimed. "I was sure you would come, but I have looked out for you so anxiously--I mean we all have," she added, blushing. "A thousand thanks for your kind welcome, Miss Horton. Believe me, your house is one of the very first to which I have directed my steps." "How good of you to remember us." "Say rather how selfish," replied Gilbert. "Do you think it is no happiness, in a foreign country, to find one circle at least where one is not a stranger?" "Nay, Mr. Margrave," said Mrs. Montresor; "will you not call us a circle of friends?" "But pray sit down," exclaimed Adelaide, pointing to a low chair near a stand of perfumed exotics in one of the windows, "sit down and tell us all your adventures by land and sea, especially the latter, and how you have survived the hair-breadth 'scapes and ventures of the briny Atlantic." Gilbert Margrave told, in a few words, the particulars of his voyage, which had been a rapid and pleasant one; "so rapid a passage," he continued with a smile, "that I trust I am yet in time to assist at the wedding of Miss Horton and my old friend Mortimer Percy." A shade of vexation crossed Adelaide's pretty face. "I really do not see," she said, "why all the world should be in such a hurry for this marriage. There is surely time enough. One would think I was in danger of becoming an old maid, or else that everybody was desirous of getting rid of me." "I do not think there is much fear of either contingency," replied Gilbert, laughing.