We found one of his daughters reading Bernardin de St Pierre's novel, a favourite study with Creole ladies; while the other was chatting with her black-skinned, ivory-toothed waiting-maid, with a degree of familiarity that would have thrown a New York élégante into a swoon. They were on their way home, their father told me, from the Ursuline Convent at New Orleans, where they had been educated.