building, in Archdale Street, Dr. Samuel Gilman, a young minister from
Gloucester, Massachusetts, became its pastor. This was the same Dr.
Gilman who wrote "Fair Harvard."

* * * * *

In only one instance did the letters of introduction we sent out produce
a response of the kind one would not be surprised at receiving in some
rushing city of the North: a telephone call. A lady, not a native
Charlestonian, but one who has lived actively about the world, rang us
up, bade us welcome, and invited us to dinner.

But she was a very modern sort of lady, as witness not only her use of
the telephone--an instrument which seems in Charleston almost an
anachronism; as, for that matter, the automobile does, too--but her
dinner hour, which was eight o'clock. Very few Charleston families dine
at night. Dinner invitations are usually for three, or perhaps half-past
three or four, in the afternoon, and there is a light supper in the
evening. I judge that this custom holds also in some other cities of the
region, for I remember calling at the office of a large investment
company in Wilmington, North Carolina, to find it wearing, at three in
the afternoon, the deserted look of a New York office between twelve and
one o'clock. Every one had gone home to dinner. Mr. W.D. Howells, in his
charming essay on Charleston, makes mention of this matter:

"The place," he says, "has its own laws and usages, and does not trouble
itself to conform to those of other aristocracies. In London the best
society dines at eight o'clock, and in Madrid at nine, but in Charleston
it dines at four.... It makes morning calls as well as afternoon calls,
but as the summer approaches the midday heat must invite rather to the