--are busy again in the market; and long-bearded politicians
are back again, at their old business, getting us in a state of
discontent with the Union and everybody in general.

There is a great opening of shutters among the old mansions. The music
of the organ resounds in the churches, and we are again in search of the
highest pinnacle to pin our dignity upon. Our best old families have
been doing the North extensively, and come home to us resolved never to
go North again. But it is fashionable to go North, and they will break
this resolution when spring comes. Mamma, and Julia Matilda have brought
home an immense stock of Northern millinery, all paid for with the
hardest of Southern money, which papa declares the greatest evil the
state suffers under. He has been down in the wilderness for the last ten
years, searching in vain for a remedy. The North is the hungry dog at
the door, and he will not be kicked away. So we have again mounted that
same old hobby-horse. There was so much low-breeding at the North,
landlords were so extortionate, vulgarity in fine clothes got in your
way wherever you went, servants were so impertinent, and the trades
people were so given to cheating. We would shake our garments of the
North, if only some one would tell us how to do it becomingly.

Master Tom and Julia Matilda differ with the old folks on this great
question of bidding adieu to the North. Tom had a "high old time
generally," and is sorry the season closed so soon. Julia Matilda has
been in a pensive mood ever since she returned. That fancy ball was so
brilliant; those moonlight drives were so pleasant; those flirtations
were carried on with such charming grace! A dozen little love affairs,
like pleasant dreams, are touching her heart with their sweet
remembrance. The more she contemplates them the sadder she becomes.
There are no drives on the beach now, no moonlight rambles, no
promenades down the great, gay verandah, no waltzing, no soul-stirring
music, no tender love-tales told under the old oaks. But they brighten
in her fancy, and she sighs for their return. She is a prisoner now,
surrounded by luxury in the grim old mansion. Julia Matilda and Master
Tom will return to the North when spring comes, and enjoy whatever there
is to be enjoyed, though Major Longstring and Mr. Midshipman Button
should get us safe out of the Union.

Go back with us, reader, not to the dead-yard, but to the quiet walks of
Magnolia Cemetery, har