"It was while I was here that an incident occurred which made a strong impression upon my mind, and was recalled to it by your mention of _Crompton_ as the town where you are living. On one of the hottest days of the season I attended a funeral, the saddest, and, in some respects, the most peculiar I ever attended. It was in a log-house some miles from the river, and was that of a young girl, who lay in her coffin with a pathetic look on her face, as if in death she were pleading for some wrong to be righted. I could scarcely keep back my tears when I looked at her, and after all these years my eyes grow moist when I recall that funeral in the palmetto clearing, with only Crackers and negroes in attendance, a demented old woman, a dark-eyed little girl, the only relatives, and a free negro, Jake, and Mandy Ann, a slave, belonging to Mrs. Harris, the only real mourners. Mandy Ann attended to the child and old woman, while Jake was master of ceremonies, and more intelligent than many white people I have met. Such a funeral as that was, with the cries and groans and singing of both whites and blacks! One old woman, called Judy, came near having the _power_, as they call a kind of fit of spiritual exaltation. But Jake shook her up, and told her to behave, as it was a 'Piscopal funeral and not a pra'r meetin'. Mandy Ann also shook up the old lady, Mrs. Harris, and screamed in her ear through a trumpet, while the little dark-eyed child joined in the refrain of the negroes' song, "'Oh, it will be joyful When we meet to part no more.' "It was ludicrous, but very sad, and Jake's efforts to keep order were pitiful. He called his young mistress Miss Dory, and was most anxious to screen her from the least suspicion of wrong. When I questioned him with regard to the parentage of the little girl, he wrung his hands and answered, 'I do' know for shu', but fo' God it's all right. She tole me so, fo' she died, an' Miss Dory never tole a lie. She said to find Elder Covil, who knew, but he's done gone off Norf, or somewhar.' "I felt sure it was all right when I saw the girl's face. It must have been beautiful in life, and no taint of guilt had ever marred its innocence. There could have been no fault at her door, except concealment, and the reason for that was buried in her grave. I heard of a stranger who visited the clearing three or four years before the funeral. Jake was away, but Mandy Ann was there and full of the 'gemman,' who, I have no doubt, was the girl's husband and a great scamp. I left Florida within a week after that funeral, and have never been here since, until I came to take charge for a time of the church which has been erected here. I should never have known the place, it has changed so since the close of the war and the influx of visitors from the North. The hotel, which has been greatly improved and enlarged, is always full in the season, and it is one of the most popular winter resorts on the river.