In Leon county, sixteen miles from Tallahassee, Mrs. Mary E. Bryan, one of our best Southern writers, was born. She was the daughter of Major John D. Edwards, one of Florida's first and most honored members of the Legislature. Her father, being a man of wealth, wished every thing in keeping with his position; for this reason he reared a mansion, known as "Castle Folly," on account of its immense size and costly material, the woodwork inside being of solid mahogany, its location almost isolated from all other residences even of humbler pretensions. Her early life was not spent in a wicked city, where the morning papers teemed with sad tales from the depths of depravity, fished up from the slums of vice, which keep high carnival under cover of darkness, hiding their foul forms in the glare of sunlight, and holding their fetid breaths when the dewy freshness of morn wafts its odors on the new-born day; but where the gay pomegranate glistened, with its pendant flaming bells, and the snowy tribute of cape jasmine, loaded with its perfume of overpowering sweetness; while, like a shower of heavenly blessings upon every zephyr, was borne the fragrant treasures from the orange-blooms, gentle as a pure spirit in a holy trance, which leaves our minds in a blissful, dreamy state, as though we were floating in mid-air. Her home was one around which childhood loves to linger, environed by primeval forests, where the placid waters of the land-locked lakes reflected the fitful shadows of the towering pine, or wide-spreading live-oak, where the graceful vine hung in festoons, or the gray, swaying moss hung from its drooping limbs, and danced to the music of the soft-sighing winds, as they swept through the evergreen foliage and died away in the dense thickets. It was when, from one of those crystal lakes, she saw the evening star, as it stole through the gleam of the dying day, reflecting its pale, trembling light alone, that she felt the throbbings of unrest stirring the depths of her soul. In these placid waters the virgin lilies bathed their beautiful heads, while the golden gates of day were closed, and the voices of night whispered themselves to rest on the balmy breezes. Many of her happy girlhood-days were spent in "Salubrity," the home of her aunt, Mrs. Julia McBride, whose many Christian virtues and philanthropic acts still live in the memory of those who knew her. However, the longings of her thirsty soul were never satisfied until she had held communion with the spirits of those whose grand thoughts she found recorded in the volumes of her uncle's library. It was while reading from the pages of classic lore, or the more enchanting strains of poetic rhythm, during the absence of Colonel R. B. Houghton, her mother's brother, that a happiness unknown to coarser clay was realized, and her spirit found repose. Mrs. Bryan is one of those flexible, trusting spirits, equal to any emergency in the struggles of