ge and discuss the news, boasting that a son
of his had 'cut a man's throat the other day, down on the island,' and
admiringly wondering whether it was the paternal or maternal side that
he got his bravery from. I deemed it, however, advisable to be reticent
on this head. And my reward followed.

'Come, Mr.----, you have been in most of the Mississippi States, I
believe, but were never in the Carolinas before, so you don't know how
we old-fashioned folks live on our plantations. Suppose you pay me a
visit at my place on ---- Island, and see? I come of English blood,
myself; my grandfather was a Tory in the Revolution'--with a laugh--'and
you'll find us a good deal more British than you think possible here in
America. England and South Carolina are mother and daughter, you know;
and under the influence of free trade, we're bound to be very intimate.
All we of the South ask is that our institutions shall speak for
themselves, and I can trust a Britisher's proverbial love of fair play
to report us as he finds us. What do you say? I'm going down to the
island for a week on Wednesday; will you spend your Christmas with me?'

The invitation was given with an offhand cordiality decidedly
prepossessing. Expressing my thanks, I at once accepted it in the spirit
it was offered.

'That's right! you're my guest, then;' and the Colonel--he had been
presented to me by that military designation--shook me by the hand.
'Will you walk?' And we strolled out together into the hall before
mentioned.

If I were writing an article on Charleston in Secession time, now, here
was an opportunity for description. What a strange, what a memorable
period it was! involuntarily reminding one of an historic parallel in
the roseate aspect presented by the early days of the first French
revolution, when everybody had hailed as the dawning of a celestial
morrow the putrescent glow of old corruption blending into the lurid
fire of the coming _sans-culottic_ hell. In this case also an infernal
_ignis fatuus_ had arisen to tempt its deluded followers toward a
selfish fool's paradise, only to be obtained by wading through seas of
fratricidal blood. And how they believed in this impossible future in
'the cradle of the rebellion!' Only a minority of darker conspirators
apprehended--hoped for--war, thinking it necessary to precipitate the
remainder of the Southern States into revolution, and the establishment
of a separate nationality; the great majority of