CHAPTER XII.
THE YANKEE-SCHOOL-MISTRESS.
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 sparkling 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—— 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 suit belonging to our host, giving our own to a servant, to be dried.