A True Love Story.
CHAPTER I
The name of Linda Mellet carries the
mind far back in time and far away in
space, and asks the heart to transfer itself
to the banks of the Mississippi and to the
earliest days of this century. The Mellet
family had left France when Louisiana was
still in possession of the old nation. The
fame of the great river, of its fertile banks
and perennial spring, had induced some of
the poets of an earlier day to call that district
the" Second Eden."
Inasmuch as the term "Eden" sounded
oftentimes like an exaggeration, the region
was named Louisiana, after the eighteen
monarchs who had lived and perished between
778 and 1773. Between Charles the
Great and Louis Phillippe, there stood a
long line of Louis's. Distinguished
among these were Louis Ie Debonnaire,
Louis the Child, Louis the Bavarian, Louis
the German, Louis the Stammerer, Louis
the Simple, Louis the Sluggard, Louis the
Fat, Louis the Pious, Louis the Lion,
Louis the Obstinate and Louis the XIV.
When France contemplated the histories
and the tombs of all these illustrious
children, she took away from our southwest
the,name of "New Eden," and called it
" Louisiana." Soon afterward a part of
the west bank of the river sunk under such
a tremendous weight of French virtue.
The marble home of Linda Mellet
escaped this submergence, but from her
attic window she could see the tops of the
sunken forest, and where once had stood
cypress trees a hundred feet in height were
to be seen now a few green bushes growing
out of the new lake, which had been
. excavated by the awful machinery of
nature. This tract of land was eighty
miles long and seventy wide, and was more
than six months in sinking out of the sight
of the beautiful Linda.
The parents of this girl, whose history
became at last a more impressive shock to
the southwest than the earthquake of New
Madrid, brought to the new world great
wealth as well as great taste. They erected
at once a home that was in full sympathy
with the architectural glory of Louis
the Magnificent. The home of Linda was
on a high bank on the west side of the
river. On the front it reached over nine
hundred feet; while in depth the structure,
which assumed the shape of two ells, ran
back 270 feet. In the open court in the
rear the western sun made possible all the
flowers and fruits of the tropics. Governed
by the kind hand of the amiable girl this
rear court was a perfect bower for all the
birds of bright plumage and sweet song.
So wild and untouched by man was the
landscape that often when Linda, by waving
her parasol, was scaring the buffaloesc
from the front porch she could hear the
American nightingale singing. in the :fig
trees at the other end of the long hall.
The attic-room to which allusion has
been made was the resort and retreat of
the gifted young woman only in hours
when she wished to work at the musical
sonnets which were rapidly giving her a
local fame. Her own proper room was on
the second floor, and being fifty feet in
width ran back a hundred and thirty-two
feet to the open court. A second course
of marble columns graced the front of her
apartment. The stone, the ironwork, the
brass, the fastenings, the mahogany carvings
all came in sailing vessels from
France.
The floor of Linda's chamber was
carpeted with rugs which had been recaptured
from a pirate's ship that had overhauled
merchantmen plying between the
Orient and Boston. These costly fabrics
had been confiscated by Lord Bellamont
in 1699 and had been purchased by an
ancestor of this beautiful girl.
Her bedstead was made of mahogany
and on this dark wood was almost endless
filigree of silver. ·.On the top of each __
post was a globe of gold so made __
of them told the sleeper the
day, another the day of the month
the day's lesson from the Book
man Prayer, the fourth played
beautiful French melodies.
Before the east windows of
lay the Mississippi, with its deep
of prophecy regarding a wonderful
lie; before the west windows lay the
savannahs, where grass mingled with vine
and shrub; where the dogwood excelled
the magnolia in whiteness, while the magnolia
excelled the dogwood in perfume.
In one of these half-forgotten years
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