CHAPTER IV.
THREE FRIENDS.
The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was a little man fondly known among his people as Pere Jerome.

He was a Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families.

His dwelling was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall, close fence, and reached by a narrow outdoor stair from the green batten gate.

It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated behind by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of the chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in benediction.
The name of the street--ah! there is where light is wanting.

Save the Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of record concerning churches at that time, though they were springing up here and there.
All there is certainty of is that Pere Jerome's frame chapel was some little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have survived the passage of years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory" "so as by fire." His parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell distinctly there the vow of poverty.