“No, he’s nothing but a Gringo!” she flashed. To a Creole dinner at Mrs. King’s. Bouillabaisse better than we had in Marseilles. Creole cooking is delicious: a cross between Spanish and French cuisines. Branch King walked home with us. I like him. The King girls are all very bright. To the stockyards. They say there has never been anything seen like the show of domestic animals. Chartres, a superb Percheron stallion, has a mane like Niagara Falls, hanging almost to the ground. Saw a string of gigantic Clydesdale yearling colts with feet big as soup plates; tiny harmless Galloway cattle with coats like a Newfoundland dog’s; hairy brown pigs from Kentucky; a white ox, the biggest I ever saw. As I was coaxing him to his feet, I read this warning: “This ox is not to be drove up when he’s laying down, by order of the committee.” January 6. To the old quarter of the town. Quaint houses of the French and Spanish time, very picturesque. Through a gloomy stone doorway, along a dark passage to an inner court with borders of violets in full bloom, palms, oranges, fig and banana trees. Through a cypress swamp of skeleton trees hung with the ghostly Spanish moss to lovely Lake Pontchartrain. During the Exposition New Orleans became a cosmopolitan nerve center, as did Philadelphia in the Centennial of 1876 and Chicago during the World’s Fair of 1893. The vivid passionate city with its old Place d’Armes, wrought-iron balconies, hedges of Cherokee roses, broad-spreading live oaks, was crowded with travelers from all over the world. It was said that one of the by-products of the Exposition was the great number of intelligent and agreeable persons it brought to the city. “January 7. Last evening to the _fête_ of the Twelfth Night Revelers. Ballroom very handsome with giant palmettoes, flowers and hundreds of caged birds. With a wild burst of music, the masked Revelers stalked in, marched round the hall, at a signal broke ranks, each captured a partner and the ball opened with the ‘Masker’s Quadrille.’ My Reveler wore a terrific devil mask which did not hide his merry blue eyes. We all trooped to the end of the room, where on a raised dais stood a mammoth cake made up of many little boxes filled with goodies; one held besides a ring. The lucky girl who got it became the queen of the ball. Home very late escorted by some of the Revelers, who left us at our door and went off singing a pretty Creole song, _Adieu, ma belle!_”