Gaze on the laughing tide."
"She sought no notice, therefore gained it all,
As thus she stood apart from all the throng
Of heartless ones that passed before her eyes."
The Mississippi—river of majestic beauties—with the green, delightful shores, elegant plantations, and dense forests of tall cotton-wood and dark, funereal cypress, overhung with the parasitical moss, gliding panorama-like before the enraptured vision! How proudly the mighty steam-boats cut the turbid water, bearing the wealth and merchandise of those productive lands to the numerous towns and cities that adorn the banks of the majestic river!
It was a lovely night in early June, and the guards of that queenliest of all queenly boats, the "Eclipse," were thronged with ladies and gentlemen just risen from their evening banquet in the sumptuous dining-saloon. They were passing Baton Rouge, and many an exclamation of delight was uttered, not only in admiration of the lovely scenery around them, but that they were so happily near the terminus of a journey, which, despite the splendid appointments of the boat, was fraught with danger, and occasioned more or less uneasiness and anxiety in the bosoms of all the passengers.
Apart from the crowd, leaning over the balustrade, her dark eyes riveted on the lovely prospect passing before her vision, stood a young girl of perhaps fifteen summers. Her form was slight, and a profusion of black, wavy ringlets floated over her small shoulders, while in all her movements was visible that singularly beautiful grace of motion, ever so attractive, and which is noticed only in very finely-constituted organizations. She stood apart from the hilarious groups around her, evidently
"In a shade of thoughts that were not their thoughts."
Her simple grace and self-possession, and the indifference manifested to the flattering attentions bestowed upon her by the gentlemen during the voyage, had rendered her an object of peculiar interest with them, and provoked no small amount of envy and invidious remark from the weaker sex.
"Look there," remarked a freckled-faced lady in blue and yellow, to a counterpart in red and green; "see Miss Pink o' Propriety, as the captain calls her, standing out there alone, to attract some gentleman's notice."