-Klux."

"He did it for money, he says," returned Louise. "The funniest thing
about him is his absolute frankness after he is found out in any
trick. He doesn't seem to have any sense of shame, and will fairly
chuckle in my father's face as he is owning up to some piece of
roguery."

"You know he was in the Confederate army. Fought well, too, I'm told.
What does he do when the Northerners are gone? Aiken must be a pretty
bare begging ground."

"Oh, he has a wretched little cabin out in the woods," said Louise,
"and a sweet-potato patch. He raises sweet potatoes and persimmons--"

"And pigs," Talboys interrupted. "I saw some particularly lean swine
grubbing about in the sand for snakes. They feed them on snakes, in
the pine barrens, you know, which serves two purposes: kills the
snakes and fills the pigs. Entertainment for man and beast, don't you
see? By the way, talking of being entertained, I know of a fine old
Southern manor-house over the bridge."

Louise shook her head incredulously. "I have lost faith in Southern
manor-houses. Ever since I came South I have sought them vainly. All
the way from Atlanta I risked my life, putting my head out of the car
windows, to see the plantations. At every scrubby-looking little
station we passed, the conductor would say, 'Mighty nice people live
heah; great deal of wealth heah before the wah!' Then I would
recklessly put my head out. I expected to see the real Southern
mansion of the novelists, with enormous piazzas and Corinthian pillars
and beautiful avenues; and the white-washed cabins of the negroes in
the middle distance; and the planter, in a white linen suit and a wide
straw hat, sitting on the piazza drinking mint juleps. Well, I don't
really think I expected the planter, but I did hope for the house.
Nothing of the kind. All I saw was a moderate-sized square house, with
piazzas and a flat roof, all sadly in need of paint. Now, I'm like
Betsey Prig; 'I don't believe there's no sich person.' It's a myth,
like the good old Southern cooking."

"Oh, they do exist," said Talboys, his eyes brightening over this long
speech, delivered in the softest voice in the world. "There are houses
in Charleston and Beaufort and on the Lower Mississippi that suggest
the novels; but, on the whole, I think the novelists have played us
false. We expect to find the ruins of luxury and splendor and all that
sort of thing in the South; but in point of fact there was very little
luxury ab