The day when one who has been a scribbler begins to resort to dictation, he loses half the pleasure of authorship. No one could desire, indeed, a lovelier amanuensis than my grand-daughter Alice, who now sets down my reminiscences, as I walk up and down the gallery of the long, overshadowed house, smoking my pipe, and uttering what I hope will be considered harmless gossip. Alice might justly blush, if I should make her pen her own praises; so, while she takes pity on my failing eyesight and my cheragra, I will respect her bashful fears. We have had a house full of company, such as Carolina mansions glory in. Carriages, filled with happy fair ones, under conduct of gay fellows careering alongside, on young horses of great pedigree, have passed away in such number that my plain, but spacious old tumble-down house seems quite a solitude. Of white faces, there are none but Alice’s and mine; for I count not the overseer and his swarming cottage, half a mile off, just beyond the copse of chinquapins. The lawn around the dwelling was laid out as I now behold it, about the year 1750. My father, who kept a diary, has recorded the planting of those towering catalpas, which in June were covered with tropical luxuriance of blossom, and now hang heavy with the verdure of their broad, damp, succulent leaves. The oaks were left from a primitive forest. Three lofty pines mark the spot for the distant traveler. If I could but prevent unsightly gullies of reddish earth, and could coax the scanty grass to mat itself English fashion, I should envy no one his surroundings. But if we have not the smooth, close-shaven green of Christ Church Meadow or Windsor Park, we have a balmy atmosphere and a gorgeous Flora and vocal hawthorn thickets, and dewy odors, such as are unknown in colder climes. Leaving poetry out of the question, our mocking-bird (a misleading name) is not inferior to the nightingale. He is also a songster of the night, and in these regions continues his visits through a longer portion of the year than his transatlantic rival. The mighty fragrance of our magnolia, though oppressive near at hand, comes mitigated on the evening breeze from the river lowlands. Our groves are draped with a thousand fantastic hangings of vines and parasitic plants; and cool springs break forth in more than one spot on this wide, half-tilled estate, which threatens, year by year, to slip out of the family.