“Monsieur! are you the captain of the Belle of the West?”
The lady spoke in French, a smattering of which the Captain in his intercourse with the Creoles had picked up.
“Yes, madame,” was the reply.
“I wish to take passage with you.”
“I shall be most happy to accommodate you, madame. There is still one state-room disengaged, I believe, Mr Shirley?”
Here the Captain appealed to the clerk, in order to ascertain if such was the case.
“Never mind!” said the lady, interrupting him, “for the matter of a state-room it is of no importance! You will reach my plantation before midnight, and therefore I shall not require to sleep aboard.”
The phrase, “my plantation,” evidently had an effect upon the Captain. Naturally not a rude man, it seemed to render him still more attentive and polite. The proprietor of a Louisiana plantation is a somebody not to be treated with nonchalance; but, when that proprietor chances to be a young and charming lady, who could be otherwise than amiable? Not Captain B., commander of the “Belle of the West!” The very name of his boat negatived the presumption!
Smiling blandly, he inquired where he was to land his fair charge.
“At Bringiers,” replied the lady. “My residence is a little below, but our landing is not a good one; besides, there is some freight which it would be better to put ashore at Bringiers.”