The day is breaking as we pass out of the yard, and wheel round the corner of the house. Early as it is, Miss Nelly is up to see us off, and her pleasant little face smiles and bows happily from the piazza. Mrs. Thornton, too, is up, and, as I bid her good day, she courteously says we had better wait for breakfast, it will be ready soon; and she points to the kitchen chimney, from which the smoke is rising briskly. These Tennessean women work harder, I think, than ours do at home. All day long, as you ride, you will hear the droning spinning wheel in almost every house, and beside it the clack of the heavy hand loom. The wives and daughters of the poorer farmers do all the garden work, and much besides that ours hand over to the men. We see black women grubbing out bushes in the fields, and white ones ploughing, harrowing, and hauling grain, with ox teams, to the mill. The wives of rich planters rise early, and seem busied and worried till night. The houses would have a thriftless look to our eyes, did not fine trees surround them. Trees are the one thing in which they show good taste. They do not ride much in carriages, because the roads are rough and carriages are scarce. Yet side-saddles are plenty; and constantly on these bridle roads you will meet women on mules, often with a child or two perched on behind--or perhaps a mother carrying her baby in her arms, and mounted on a sober, old mare, whose little colt frisks merrily around. We have not met any though this morning, and at eight o'clock have travelled back to the Paris road, and to within four miles of Paris. Here we halt for breakfast. The men whose turn it is for picket, ride on a mile or two down the road, the others dismount. The two who act as cooks take possession of a little out-kitchen, and proceed to fry the bacon and boil the coffee. I walk into the house and find a wretched family. The father of it is old and sick. He groans as I speak to him, and says: "Oh, our wretched country! What have we done that we must suffer so? I have always been for the Union, but the young men are all against it." His son, a young man, and evidently a rebel, seems equally wretched. I tell him I must feed my horses, and he points to the barn yard, and says there is corn there. Generally these people receive us with some show of welcome, but he seems utterly indifferent. I ask him if he will not see that his property is not abused; that perhaps there is some crib or stack he does not want touched; but he shakes his head, and walks up and down the piazza, paying no more attention to us. Down a deep ravine behind the house is a beautiful spring. Gigantic oaks rise over it, and the water flows from a bank of fine, white sand--so fine and white that it seems an alabaster fountain. Here I unroll my towel and make my toilet, and then climb the hill for breakfast, which is ready.