"`JOHN WARWICK, CLARENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.'


"One of the South Ca'lina bigbugs, I reckon
--probably in cotton, or turpentine." The gentleman
from South Carolina, walking down the street,
glanced about him with an eager look, in which
curiosity and affection were mingled with a touch
of bitterness. He saw little that was not familiar,
or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred
times during the past ten years. There had been
some changes, it is true, some melancholy changes,
but scarcely anything by way of addition or
improvement to counterbalance them. Here and
there blackened and dismantled walls marked the
place where handsome buildings once had stood, for
Sherman's march to the sea had left its mark upon
the town. The stores were mostly of brick, two
stories high, joining one another after the manner
of cities. Some of the names on the signs were
familiar; others, including a number of Jewish
names, were quite unknown to him.

A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the
name he had registered under, and as we shall call
him--to the market-house, the central feature of
Patesville, from both the commercial and the
picturesque points of view. Standing foursquare in
the heart of the town, at the intersection of the