both flow down and up, and everywhere are greenness and gaiety. Very well; I certainly won't come back to bring a blight into Paradise. . . . But, seriously, if Miss A. G. comes up, I hope M. will consider it a call and return it with dignity, for it seems to me H. is growing wild and turning our house into a sort of banqueting-hall for Comus and his crew, which I beg M. to set her face against by taking every visit to herself. . . .
My white bonnet is much admired here. Miss Charlotte Carr sent to borrow it the other day, and has made one its exact image, flowers and all. I felt quite proud in setting the fashion in Asheville!
In 1846 the Asheville school was broken up, and
I resolved to try my fortunes in the South, journeying
with Mrs. John Dickson to Charleston, S.C.,
exchanging the fine mountain country for the level
rice-fields of South Carolina. It was a striking
journey—a transformation scene! It is thus described
in a journal of that date:—
On January 14 we left by stage early in the morning.
We jolted off in the bright moonlight; the ground was
frozen hard and very rough. I walked with Flinn over
the Blue Ridge and the Saluda, another branch of the
Alleghanies. The weather was beautiful, the air invigorating,
and the mountain seemed to deserve its name.
On the top of the Saluda a stone marks the boundary of
the two Carolinas. I hesitated at crossing it, for my
affections are all with the 'old North State.' At the foot
we drank to its health from the Poinsett Spring, as we
had promised John to do. A little afterwards we passed
the wildest scenery I ever remember to have seen. The
road wound down the south side of the mountain in very
