"So I think," said Josephine. "His superior could hardly be found in any of our large cities. Did you know poor Celestina had heard from her faithless husband? He pleads for forgiveness and promises to return if she will receive him. It appears he and brother Jack have amassed a large fortune in Australia."
"Indeed! I am rejoiced to hear so good tidings of the adventurers. Is Celestina still in the convent to which she retired?"
"She is; but proposes to leave it and accompany us to Texas on our return to that country. Whether she will receive her husband I cannot say, but will hazard an opinion that, should she one day behold him at her feet imploring pardon, love would overpower all remembrance of former wrongs. But there's Fred.," added the joyous-hearted girl. "I must away to meet him."
"Where?" asked Alice, gazing on all sides.
"There, walking down that avenue of poplars!" returned Josephine. "I saw him some moments since,"—love is so quick-sighted when its object is at hand, and so abstracted when it is at a distance,—and Josephine hurried away to meet her lover, leaving Alice to stroll onward by herself. Presently, Hannah, the servant-girl that Mrs. Sykes, the benevolent lady, averred had been "bejuggled" from her by Mrs. Orville, came through the garden at full speed, exclaiming, "Miss Alice, there be a gentleman in the parlor waitin' to see ye!"
On hearing this message, Alice accelerated her steps to reach the house, and retired to her room a few moments to adjust her dress before entering the presence of her visitor.
Reader! that truant-knight, for whom we went in search so long ago, is found at last.
Far down "la belle riviere" floated the fairy white steamboat on its winding-way to Louisville, while the joy-groups danced and sung by the clear moonlight over the airy decks.
And now once more adown the proud-rolling Mississippi, we see that "floating-palace," the Eclipse, cutting her way through the foamy waters. How, all day long, the verdure-clad shores smile up to the clear, cerulean heaven that arches above! And how the moonbeams pour their silvery light down on the sleeping earth! and all the while, by night and day, the boat sweeps proudly onward.