After the lapse of about a quarter of an hour, a well-known voice was heard; and at an opening in the leafy covert, the person it proceeded from appeared, accompanied by a female. This was the parochial school-mistress; and a kind-hearted creature she appeared to be. She immediately sent in search of the cross sexton, and promised to take upon herself the responsibility of letting our party into the church; but the man was not to be found—he had left the town, and carried the keys with him. With native politeness, Miss Austin (as the worthy school-mistress was called) invited us to rest in her house until she could make further inquiries after the “keys;” and following our conductress, we shortly arrived at her residence, where (with a very warrantable kind of pride) she informed us, her mother was born, and married, and had reared eight children. Long before we gained the house, the hum of little voices was heard; and upon approaching the open door, about forty children, who formed the school, rose up, and commenced singing, “We make our obeisance to you, ma’am,” to the tune of “L—a—w, Law;” while a parrot, suspended from a beam, if she did not _sing_, at least _screeched_ in chorus. After looking at these little negroes for some time, and inspecting the simple decorations of their school-room, we were ushered up stairs, and introduced to Miss Austin’s two sisters. I cannot help speaking more fully of the polite behaviour of this trio. I came among them a perfect stranger, my name even being unknown, and in all probability never again to meet in this world; but every little attention possible was lavished upon me, the choicest produce of their garden tendered, and without the least parade. I have mixed with society in a far higher grade, where courtly manners prevail, and every art is tried to invest each action with a polished grace; but often, very often, has less native good-breeding, fewer sterling qualities of the mind been displayed than I found in the sisters of “Old Road.” They are not like the generality of persons in their line of life; hospitality indeed is, I believe, a virtue which most of them possess; but there was no aping of their betters, as is too frequently the case with this class of people; no flying away, when we came so suddenly upon them, to put on a brass chain, or a string of glass beads; or to take off an untidy wrapper, to enrobe themselves in a smart gown; their neat dresses and snow-white collars, like beauty, needed not “the foreign aid of ornament.”