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.'