I also showed some tricks which puzzled the company—particularly a very tall man, with long, projecting nose and retreating forehead, who looked like a stupid fox. Miss Jane P. was seated in a corner, behind a little table, on which were draughts arranged as the nuns of the Lady Abbess, she challenging everybody to introduce the four cavaliers unknown to the blind mistress. Everybody said it was not possible, and Miss Jane turned triumphantly to me to know if I could do it. I said I could not only introduce the four knights, but their four squires also, and then suffer knights, squires, and four nuns to elope, without the blind Abbess having the slightest suspicion of the defection. Everybody thought it impossible, but when I actually performed the feat they looked upon me as half a conjuror—particularly the stranger fox—and Mrs. Dickson thought it was hardly safe that I should occupy the front bedroom in a young ladies’ boarding-school. I also amused them with the three jealous couples crossing the stream; we were all very merry, and I did more talking than I have accomplished in the same space of time for many a day. On our return home, the young gentleman who accompanied me said that if he had only known I was coming he would have gone from New York to Cincinnati, to escort me to Asheville (I did not tell him how very glad I was he did not know it); and on my expressing a wish to visit Mount Pisgah, he assured me that to the very next party that was made up he would be sure to see that I received an invitation. (I did not say he need not trouble himself, that I should get the invitation without his interference; I only thought all that, for I am growing very polite in my _manners_.) ... About a week ago I rode to the Sulphur Springs, which are about four miles from Asheville; they are not much resorted to, the country round being tangled and rather uninteresting. The springs, however, are situated in a delightful valley, through which the wind blew most refreshingly; a roofed platform is erected in the midst of the grass plat, the perfectly clear water welling up into a marble basin on one side, and then flowing away in a little rivulet. I found a country woman resting herself on the platform, with a bright, pleasant face and very communicative. I sat and talked to her and thought of the woman of Samaria; presently a bilious-looking Southerner came down and drank a dipper full of water, which dispelled all the illusion, for my imagination conjured up rice-swamps and clanking chains.