Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/470

Rh did not suit me, when I found that for all this magnificence I must pay three dollars per day, without being able with it all, to enjoy one pleasant hour, I became anxious to find another home.

And another home I soon found, through the kind care of my kind countryman, Mr. Charles S., brother to the Justitierråd. And this morning Lerner H. brought me hither in a carriage amid rain and cold. I am now living in a private boarding-house, with a respectable widow. I have a large handsome room, carpeted and with a fire-place, and two large windows looking out into a market-place planted with young trees still green, and with a grass-plot in the centre. This is La Fayette Square. It is a beautiful and very quiet place. I esteem myself quite happy in my dwelling, for which I pay, together with my board, only ten dollars per week, which is low for New Orleans.

I became acquainted in St. Charles's Hotel with two persons who may hereafter become more to me than mere acquaintance; these are Mr. and Mrs. G. They are from Cincinnati, but are residing, like Mr. Lerner H., through the winter in New Orleans, where both gentlemen have business. Lerner H. had prepared me to like Mrs. G. very much.

When on the morning after my arrival, I went down to breakfast in the great eating-hall, no one was as yet there, and I set myself to guess my new friend's friend from among those who entered.

I beheld ladies enter one after another, all in dresses made high to the throat, with little collars and without caps; and all dressed as much alike, as if they had been modelled from one block. All were delicate, thin, or rather dried up, and looked, it seemed to me, dried up inwardly as well as outwardly. But in this I might be mistaken. Certain it is I thirsted for a little life, a little individuality in the exterior as well as the interior. The Quakeresses are