pouring sky, cried out:

'THANK GOD, WE ARE SAVED!'

There--not three hundred yards in our rear, had passed the
TORNADO--uprooting trees, prostrating dwellings, and sending many a soul
to its last account, but sparing us for another day! For thirty miles
through the forest it had mowed a swath of two hundred feet, then moved
on to stir the ocean to its briny depths.

With a full heart, I remounted, and turning my horse, pressed on in the
rain. We said not a word till a friendly opening pointed the way to a
planter's dwelling. Then calling to me to follow, the Colonel dashed up
the by-path which led to the mansion, and in five minutes we were
warming our chilled limbs before the cheerful fire that roared and
crackled on its broad hearth-stone.

The house was a large, old-fashioned frame building, square as a
packing-box, and surrounded, as all country dwellings at the South are,
by a broad, open piazza. Our summons was answered by its owner, a
well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary
homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above
the common 'corn-crackers' I had seen at the country meeting-house. The
Colonel was an acquaintance, and greeting us with great cordiality, our
host led the way directly to the sitting-room. There we found a bright,
blazing fire, and a pair of bright, blazing eyes, the latter belonging
to a blithesome young woman of about twenty, with a cheery face, and a
half-rustic, half-cultivated air, whom our new friend introduced to us
as his wife.

'I regret not having had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. S---- before, but
am very happy to meet her now,' said the Colonel, with all the
well-bred, gentlemanly ease that distinguished him.

'The pleasure is mutual, Colonel J----,' replied the lady, 'but thirty
miles in this wild country should not have made a neighbor so distant as
you have been.'

'Business, madam, is at fault, as your husband knows. I have much to do;
and besides, all my connections are in the other direction--with
Charleston.'

'It's a fact, Sally, the Colonel is the d----st busy man in these parts.
Not content with a big plantation and three hundred niggers, he looks
after all South-Carolina, and the rest of creation to boot,' said our
host.

'Tom will have his joke, madam, but he's not far from the truth.'

Seeing we were dripping wet, the lady offered us a change of clothing,
and retiring to a chamber, we each appropriated a su