A Romance of the Republic

"What are you going to do with yourself this evening, Alfred?" said Mr.
Royal to his companion, as they issued from his counting-house in New
Orleans. "Perhaps I ought to apologize for not calling you Mr. King,
considering the shortness of our acquaintance; but your father and I
were like brothers in our youth, and you resemble him so much, I can
hardly realize that you are not he himself, and I still a young man.
It used to be a joke with us that we must be cousins, since he was a
King and I was of the Royal family. So excuse me if I say to you, as
I used to say to him. What are you going to do with yourself, Cousin
Alfred?"

"I thank you for the friendly familiarity," rejoined the young man.
"It is pleasant to know that I remind you so strongly of my good
father. My most earnest wish is to resemble him in character as much
as I am said to resemble him in person. I have formed no plans for the
evening. I was just about to ask you what there was best worth seeing
or hearing in the Crescent City."

"If I should tell you I thought there was nothing better worth seeing
than my daughters, you would perhaps excuse a father's partiality,"
rejoined Mr. Royal.

"Your daughters!" exclaimed his companion, in a tone of surprise. "I
never heard that you were married."

A shadow of embarrassment passed over the merchant's face, as he
replied, "Their mother was a Spanish lady,--a stranger here,--and she
formed no acquaintance. She was a woman of a great heart and of rare
beauty. Nothing can ever make up her loss to me; but all the joy that
remains in life is centred in the daughters she has left me. I should
like to introduce them to you; and that is a compliment I never before
paid to any young man. My home is in the outskirts of the city; and
when we have dined at the hotel, according to my daily habit, I will
send off a few letters, and then, if you like to go there with me, I
will call a carriage."