South Carolina archives at the library--and then that notebook you
bring marked you out the very first day. Why, two hours after your first
lunch we just knew all about you!"

"Dear me!" said I.

"Kings Port is ever ready to discuss strangers," she further explained.
"The Exchange has been going on five years, and the resident families
have discussed each other so thoroughly here that everything is known;
therefore a stranger is a perfect boon." Her gayety for a moment
interrupted her, before she continued, always mocking and always sweet:
"Kings Port cannot boast intelligence offices for servants; but if you
want to know the character and occupation of your friends, come to the
Exchange!" How I wish I could give you the raciness, the contagion, of
her laughter! Who would have dreamed that behind her primness all this
frolic lay in ambush? "Why," she said, "I'm only a plantation girl; it's
my first week here, and I know every wicked deed everybody as done since
1812!"

She went back to her counter. It had been very merry; and as I was
settling the small debt for my lunch I asked: "Since this is the proper
place for information, will you kindly tell me whose wedding that cake
is for?"

She was astonished. "You don't know? And I thought you were quite a
clever Ya--I beg your pardon--Northerner.

"Please tell me, since I know you're quite a clever Reb--I beg your
pardon--Southerner."

"Why, it's his own! Couldn't you see that from his bashfulness?"

"Ordering his own wedding cake?" Amazement held me. But the door opened,
one of the elderly ladies entered, the girl behind the counter stiffened
to primness in a flash, and I went out into Royal Street as the curly
dog's tail wagged his greeting to the newcomer.

III: Kings Port Talks

Of course I had at once left the letters of introduction which Aunt
Carola had given me; but in my ignorance of Kings Port hours I had
found everybody at dinner when I made my first round of calls between
half-past three and five--an experience particularly regrettable, since
I had hurried my own dinner on purpose, not then aware that the hours at
my boarding-house were the custom of the whole town. (These hours
even since my visit to Kings Port, are beginning to change. But such
backsliding is much condemned.) Upon an afternoon some days later,
having seen in the extra looking-glass, which I had been obliged to
provide for myself, that the part in my back hair was perfect, I s