Original.

neath a verandah, which, continuing round the four sides,

CARLOTA, THE NUN OF SAN ELISEO. both enclosed and adorned the patio. Most of the rooms

A TALE OF LOUISIANA.

IN TWO PARTS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF LAFITTE,'' CAPT. KYD,'' QUADROON,' ETC.
New York, Dec. 1, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR:
ON one of those golden afternoons which render the
month of November in Louisiana delightful above all
other seasons in all other lands, I was riding on horse-
back through the lower Foubourg of New Orleans, in
company with an agreeable young Creole gentleman,
Alfred Soulié, who, in addition to a fine estate and a
good person, possessed a highly cultivated mind, and is a
poet of no mean rank. He is, also, a very pleasing prose
writer, though his style and the tone of his mind partakes
strongly of the Germanic hue. His imagination loves to
revel in, and his pen to describe, legends and tales be-
longing to this dark and extravagant school which, based
on the wildest theories of a fanciful superstition, had its
origin, nevertheless, among a profoundly ideal yet singu-
larly intellectual people. Our conversation during dinner
had been upon subjects congenial with his peculiar tone
of mind-tales of marvel and of wonder! and in reply to
an inquiry if he was familiar with any legend or tradition
of Louisiana? he replied to me by abruptly ordering sad-
dle horses, and saying-

"I will ride with you to a spot not far distant, that has been the scene of an event, which, although not belonging to supernatural legendrie or spiritual superstition, involves in its singular circumstances sufficient interest for those whose minds can receive the healthy nourishment which facts often furnish, as if in mockery to the flimsy creations of fiction."

composing the suite which we approached, were shut up, or without windows or doors, but my attention was at once attracted to the farthest in the range, by the sight of an old man with a head white as snow, his once dignified form bent with care and sorrow, rather than the weakness of age; his garments squalid; his beard long and untrimmed; his eye set and rigid, and his countenance singularly and strongly expressive of misery. He was seated upon a low bench beneath a grated window, which he seemed to watch with nervous solicitude.

Before I could ask M. Soulié for an explanation, my attention was suddenly drawn to a female figure that appeared at the grated window, which, shaded by a deep arch, was low, dark and gloomy. Instantly on beholding us, she cried out with a wild look of joy, and clapping her hands

Brave bridegrooms,

"Ho, ho! Two husbands! father, brave bridegrooms! Mounted and spurred! Ho, for the bridal, ho! I have two brave husbands!" She then looked at us steadily for an instant, with the most singular intensity of penetration in her gaze; then shaking her head, and ringing her hands sadly together, she added in a tone of disappointment—

"No, no! it is not Estavan! it is not my bridegroom, father!"

"No, no, it is not Estavan, daughter," repeated the old man with a cold laugh, which chilled my blood. "What means this?" I asked of M. Soulé, astonished at what I beheld.

"Observe now closely what you see, and you shall learn by-and-by," he answered in a low tone. I then turned to observe the woman, whose appearance was the most striking I had ever beheld. She was about thirty-eight years of age, with a dark complexion, and long black loose hair that reached nearly to her feet. Her person was singularly elegant, and her manner graceful and easy. Her hands, as she clasped them together, were symmetrical and delicate-indicative of birth and blood not to be mistaken-and the fingers glittered with jewels. Her features were beautifully regular, and a finer mouth and chin I never saw. Her teeth were white and brilliant, and such eyes as she rested upon us were never matched for depth, brightness and glory of expression. The shade with which Reason tempers the light of the mind was shattered, and it blazed forth in that full splendor so painful to look upon. She was the splendid wreck of perhaps the handsomest woman of her times. That she was of Spanish birth and parentage was plain, by the lofty style of her Castilian features, and the naturally proud carriage of her finely shaped head. Her dress was as singular as her appearance. She wore a pure white robe, bound beneath the bosom by an em"This is the building to which I alluded," said M.broidered cénta, and a necklace of magnificent pearls Soulié. "Let us ride through the portal, and if you will adorned her neck; while about her temples was entwined pass to the other side of the ruined fountain of the patio,|| a wreath of bridal flowers, in striking contrast with her you will discover the object of my visit here."

After riding a short distance down the street, into which we turned from the house, we entered the Rue Ursuline, and passed along beneath the grey walls of the old and now tenantless convent. Not far beyond the convent grounds, we stopped in the front of a large, || ancient-looking mansion, erected in the pompous days of Spanish power. It was profusely ornamented with pilasters and carved work, and its battlements had been adorned with huge stone urns, most of which had now fallen. The whole edifice was ruinous and neglected; grass grew from its window sills, and one leaf of the spacious and heavily arched gateway was broken down, and lay flat upon the stone pavement of the vaulted passage which led into the patio or inner court. Over the gateway was a stone shield, on which were sculptured the arms of the house. Yet in its ruinous state, the dwelling wore an air of grandeur and family pride that time could not erase.

We entered on horseback beneath the crumbling arch of the portecocher, and riding across the shattered pavement of the inner court, came to a range of rooms be

unloosed coal black hair that covered her snow robe, like a mourning veil. Whatever was her strange history, I felt that naturally fierce and ungoverned passion had made her as I saw her, for never was depth of passion so

vividly pourtrayed in the lovely lineaments of a woman's | friend, Don Fabian, to induce him also to emface.

“Have you made your observations, monsieur ?" said M. Soulié, tightening his reins, and slightly pressing the

sides of his horse with his spurs.

“Yes, but am more and more involved in mystery by

what I have seen."

after to-morrow,

"Let us now ride. If you will dine with me the day I will gratify your curiosity by opening to you the meaning of this extraordinary scene you have now witnessed."

I looked once more to get a parting glance of the singular female whose appearance and aspect strangely and impressively conveyed to my mind the idea of a fallen, but still beautiful angel, "chained in darkness unto the Great Day." She left the window as I did so, darting a piercing glance of murderous hate towards us; and the old man had never looked up or taken any notice of us. So we rode out of the court, and with the reluctance of ungratified curiosity, I left them to their singular solitude and mysterious companionship.

The following day I called at the hospitable mansion of M. Soulié, and found left for me a note, apologizing for his unexpected absence by a sudden summons to his plantation on the coast; but directing me to a spot in his library where he had left a narrative of the subject that had so recently engaged our attention, which he had amused himself after returning home, by writing out for me; desiring me, if it pleased me to accept of it, and make such use of it as I pleased. I have therefore literally translated it, and, at your request, my dear Snowden, send it for publication in your valuable magazine. With friendly consideration

pers

bark his money in commerce, which, at that period, promised such rich increase to the wealth of those who engaged in it. But Don Fabian Don Beltran, and being of a quiet and somewhat was of a less active and ambitious temper than pastoral turn, he resolved that he would leave the city, and seek those riches in the fertile regions of upper Louisiana, in the pursuits of agriculture, which his friend preferred striving for amid the noise and struggle of a busy mart. As both, therefore, though bosom friends and companions from childhood, were of different temthe other to abandon his scheme, and share in and tastes, and as neither could persuade his own, they affectionately embraced each other, and parted; Don Beltran to engage in the eager pursuits of commerce, Don Fabian to pursue the rural and pleasing occupation of agriculture. Leaving the latter for the present, to fulfil his intentions, we will remain with Don Beltran, and see how he gets along. He was now twenty-four years of age, being one year older than his friend; and handsome in person, and of agreeable address, he was not long in captivating the regards of some of the most beautiful women in the city; and having a great love for social pleasures, he easily found time from his pursuits to seek that enjoyment which cultivated society always affords to ingenious minds. Among the ladies that arrested his attention, after he had been two years settled there, were two cousins, with but two years difference in their ages; Doña Engracia, the elder, being twenty, and Doña Gertrudis, the DON BELTRAN GARCIA and Don Fabrian younger, eighteen. They were both remarkable Isla, were two young men, both born in old for their beauty and agreeable vivacity, and Don Castile, and both descended from the noblest Beltran seeing them often, and being of a susand most ancient families of the kingdom. Both ceptible temper, became equally enamored of arrived at the age of manhood about the same both of them; which, if he would love either, time, and being very confidential and close will not appear so extraordinary, when it is told friends, they resolved one day, each being the that their resemblance to each other was as great sole living representative of his family, to quit as if they had been twin sisters. They, in their Spain for the new world, and improve their for-turn, were both in love with him, and so well they tunes, which had been much straitened by a long carried it in their looks and port, when he was series of mortgages upon their paternal estates.by, it were an acute observer to decide which After settling up their affairs there, and leaving of them most loved Don Beltran in return. Don their patrimonies in the hands of faithful stew-Beltran felt that he could not be at the same ards, they set sail for Cadiz, in a ship bound for the then Spanish domain of Louisiana. On their arrival in New Orleans, they began to con- || sider how they should invest their money, which amounted to about ten thousand pesas each, in such a way as to make it yield them great returns. Don Beltran had a fancy for commerce, and decided that he would become a merchant, and used many arguments with his

I am very truly Yours,
THE AUTHOR OF "LAFITTE."

William W. Snowden, Esq.

time the husband of both of them, and was in a strait how to choose between them, for he must needs have one of them to wife, when he learned that Engracia was born out of wedlock, and that she had in her veins a taint of Moorish blood. This at once decided the difficulty in his mind, and determined him to make Gertrudis his wife; who, he could not but confess, was of a sweeter emper than her cousin. But he was still ena