Enter the home and lo! a palace greets you. Massive mahogany furniture,
now, alas! in scattered remnants, meets the eye at every turn. Treasures
and elegant trifles of many lands attest the artistic taste of the
owners. Gorgeous china, plate and glass are there in everyday use.
Fruits of the loom in rarest silk and linen, embellish the chambers
and luxury sits enthroned. The chatelaine, gracious and cultured, is
to the manner born: and from season to season she fills her house with
congenial people who are invited to come, but not, as with present house
parties, told when to go. As long as they found it comfortable and
convenient the latchstring was out. A guest was never permitted to pay
for anything; expressage, laundry and all incidentals were as free as
air. The question of money, nowadays impertinently thrust forth, was
never hinted at in the olden time. It was considered bad form, and the
luckless boaster of "how poor he was" would have been properly stared
at as a boor as well as a bore.

For pastimes men had fishing and hunting, and for women there were lawn
games and indoor diversions. Speaking of the women of the South a writer
aptly said: "They dwell in a land goodly and pleasant to the eye; a land
of fine resources, both agricultural and mineral; where may be found
fertile cotton fields, vast rice tracts, large sugar plantations, bright
skies and balmy breezes. The whole land is plowed by mighty rivers, is
ribbed by long mountain chains, and washed by the sea."

Fitting environment, we add, for the gorgeous residences, notably
in Georgia and South Carolina, built by the nobility and gentry of
the republic, and inherited by the descendants of the old colonial
aristocracy. What wonder, that they held themselves aloof from the
manual laborer, black or white, and that they were uncontaminated by
the attrition of commercial competition. In the summer the family sought