"What, is this not the South?" said I. "I thought everything was South after we passed Lancaster." "England is a little longer than that," said Annas, laughing. "No, Cary: we do not get into the Midlands on this side of Derby, nor into the South on this side of Bedford." So I had to wait until Friday before I saw the South. When I did, I thought it very flat and very woody. I could scarcely see anything for trees; only [Note 2.] there were no hills to see. And how strange the talk sounded! They seemed to speak all their u's as if they were e's, and their a's the same. Annas laughed when I said that "take up the mat" sounded in the South like "teek ep the met." It really did, to me. "I suppose," said Flora, "our words sound just as queer to these people." "O Flora, they can't!" I cried. Because we say the words right; and how can that sound queer? It was nearly six o'clock when the chaise drew up before the door of my Uncle Charles's house in Bloomsbury Square. These poor Southerners think, I hear, that Bloomsbury Square is one of the wonders of the world. The world must be very short of wonders, and so I said. "O Cary, you are a bundle of prejudices!" laughed Annas. Flora--who never can bear a word of disagreement--turned the discourse by saying that Mr Cameron had told her Bloomsbury came from Blumond's bury, the town of some man called Blumond. And just then the door opened, and I felt almost terrified of the big, grand-looking man who stood behind it. However, as it was I who was the particularly invited guest, I had to jump down from the chaise, after a boy had let down the steps, and to tell the big man who I was and whence I came: when he said, in that mincing way they have in the South, as if they must cut their words small before they could get them into their mouths, that Madam expected me, and I was to walk up-stairs. My heart went pit-a-pat, but up I marched, Annas and Flora following; and if the big man did not call out my name to another big man, just the copy of him, who stood at the top of the stairs, so loud that I should think it must have been heard over half the house. I felt quite ashamed, but I walked straight on, into a grand room all over looking-glasses and crimson, where a circle of ladies and gentlemen were sitting round the fire. We have not begun fires in the North. I do think they are a nesh [Note 3.] lot of folks who live in the South. Grandmamma was at one end of the circle, and my Aunt Dorothea at the other. I went straight up to Grandmamma. "How do you, Grandmamma?" said I. "This is my cousin, Flora Drummond, and this is our friend, Annas Keith. Fa--Papa, I mean, and Aunt Kezia, sent their respectful compliments, and begged that you would kindly allow them to tarry here for a night on their way to the Isle of Wight." Grandmamma looked at me, then at Flora, then at Annas, and took a pinch of snuff.