The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1871-09-15
CAUGHT BY AN HEIREss.
BY JUSTIN MCCARTHY.

There was quite pleasant Httl,
thrill of excitement on board the Mis-
sissippi steamer Columbia, bound from
New Orleans to st. Louis, as she lay
at the quay of the former city (do they
call it quay at New Orleans. o.
q leYee, or q cTeUdsSe, or What?) JUS
before starting, on her voyage. The
| passengers were nearly all on board
the seemingly interminabIe process O.
rolling in casks of sugar and bales o.
cotton by vCciferous, awkward ne
gTOes had really come to an end; but
, the captain still stood on the quay
wharf, IeYee, cTeUdsSe, or whatever
it was, and the specified hour for de-
parture had long passed away. The
sun had gone doWn--it was in the lat
ter end of April, before the fierce
heats had set in to make Canal Street
a solitude and CarrOIltOn a bowling
Wilderness-and the crew and the pOr-
ters did their work by the light of the
demoniac-looking little furnaces OF
braziers, filled with blazing pine-WoOd
which were fixed at the steamers
bows. Among the impatient passen-
gers the rumOr was that the steamer
was only waiting now to take on board
| young heiress, of immense wealth
and social dignity, who was going
up somewhere north, and thence to
Europe.
Some few of the passengers profess
ed to know all about the matter.
Their accounts, of course, did not
agree in many particulars; but they
all generally bore out one broad con-
clusion. The young heiress had only
recently become enriched. The death
of distant relative, who had amass-
ed a huge fortune in South America,
| had made her, quite Unexpectedly, an
| heiress. She had been brought up in
a New Orleans convent, her mother
being dead. Her father was travelling
with her. Except as her father he
was quite poor man, ruined in the
war. Was she pretty?4 everybody
asked. Nobody knew. Several on
| board were acquainted, more or less
with the father; not one ever profess
ed to have seen the daughter.
| While a general and keen anxiety
was felt to see the heiress, the ladies
were much more eager on the subject
| than the gentlemen. Men are very
| seldom curious about q woman whom
! they have not seen; women are just
| the reverse. The men on board the
| Columbia who felt or prOfessed the
greatest desire to see the expected
! heiress were Colonel Sharpe, the Hon.
Captain Decides (of England), and
Phil Pembroke.
These three ought to to be clearly
described. Colonel Sharpe was q
small, dark haired man, with eyes
that cleaned like jewels. He was
handsomely, perhaps rather f1oTidiy,
dressed; had an emerald in his shirt,
and wore elegant glazed boots, small
and dainty enough to have peeped
beneath a petticOat. 1 should not
care to have played billiards or euchre
with Colonel Sharpe, who was almost
always playing one or the other. 1t
is doubtful whether the military au-
thorities at Washington could have
furnished any explanation as to how
Mr.. Sharpe came by his title Of Colo
mel; and 1 don't suppose Jefferson
Davis knew any thing more about the
matter than General Grant. The
manners of Colonel Sharpe to the
ladies on board were eiaborateIy polite
and chiValrous, with an Ostentatious
dash of tenderness in them. When
he took off 7lis hat and bowed to
| lady, there was an air of sentimental
confidence about the motion which
| seemed to hint that it was an act Of
| homage paid to her, and her alone.
| Colonel Sharpe went up and down
| the Mississippi very often, and played
| cards immensely all the way, and
| drank many, many sherry
and much champagne and brandy,
and he was ready to offer you wager
on any assertion whatever.
The Hon. Capt. Decides (whOse regi-
ment was now stationed in TorontO)
was an English younger son. He
was handsome, dorid man, OF thirty
five, with neat brown mustache and
! brown Whiskers and shaVen chin, and
| hair lavishly oiled and carefully part
ed down the middle, He was special
Iy remarkable for his unalterable COM
pOsure and impenetrable self-posses-
sion. Nothing on earth or sea could
| disturb him, or shake his calm faith
| in his own superiority and that of his
! class to all humanity outside. He
was poor, as BELTS younger son, and,
! like q true British ariStocrat, he cared
not a farthing who knew it. He
wanted to marry a woman with
| money; and he even frankly acknowl-
edged that, given the money, he
should not be very particular about
! the beauty or intellect of the woman.
! Phil Pembroke was a handsome
| young American, who had gone cred
! itabIy, not perhaps very splendidly,
] LIS 0A4ANCADAbJ OOAAAHSr SsAAN AAN+NA
| not vet quite found out what to do
| with himself III life. He was a won
derfulIy slow young American in that
way; for he was twenty-five years old,
i and yet had hardly begun the world.
| He had very little money. His father
and mother were dead. He had had
| forced upon him, through family in
fiuence, counsulship in one of the
| British possessions, and not liking the
utter absence of real work, he had ac-
| tually flung up the appointment, de-
claring himself disgusted with office
seeking, and vOWing that ne would
| live by his own brains and eXertiOns,
or not live at all. He was manly
| young fellow, with dash of the rO-
mantle in him; and he.had still poet
ic reverence for a woman, even
though she wore high heels and as.
sumed the Grecian bend-which l
! take to be the severest test of mans
| devotion to woman ever yet devised
| by fashion.
Colonel Sharpe thought something
| could be made out of the heiress or the
father, somehow. Captain Decides
! thought he might have try for the
girl and her "tin." Phil Pembroke
| was anxious to see what the mysteri-
Gus Young lady might be like. In the
weary hours before the steamers de-
parture these three had been thrown
together a good deal. Colonel Sharpe
had won two bets of the Britisher,
and played cards with him, but found
that in the latter manly sport the
Britisher could hold his own,
At last three carriages rattle down
to the wharf. Several huge trunks
and boxes and valises are taken on
board. Then comes an elderly gentle
man handing in two ladies, both
young, apparently; then a smart
French dRmsel, evidently a lady's-
maid; and then a colored man carry