Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/146

130 "What! then you came into New Orleans while I was living in that wretched wood?"

"Yes, several days after we had lost you."

"Well then there must have been some fate which prevented our meeting. For several days I stole into the city in the evening for food, and back to the wood to sleep, till at last it occurred to me that sleeping out was by no means wholesome or agreeable, and that I should be just as safe in one of the empty houses as under a tree. So the next night I went into one of the houses and there remained, and in that house I passed most of the four years since.

"Without a soul to speak to! What an existence," said Gell.

"Well I was not idle, at all events. First I had my food to get, then my clothes to make, which kept me occupied. Then, as I found that the monsters kept outside the city for the most part, I began to go about more freely, and took what I wanted from the stores, or studied the books and maps in the public library. You see I knew you intended going to the Sandwich Islands, and made up my mind that somehow or other I would follow. For a girl to undertake such a voyage alone was no trifle."