like simplicity, Tom gives his
hand to the young man, who, as old Spunyarn enters the cell to, as he
says, get the latitude of his friend's nerves, departs in search of Mrs.
Swiggs.

Mrs. Swiggs is the stately old member of a crispy old family, that, like
numerous other families in the State, seem to have outlived two
chivalrous generations, fed upon aristocracy, and are dying out
contemplating their own greatness. Indeed, the Swiggs family, while it
lived and enjoyed the glory of its name, was very like the Barnwell
family of this day, who, one by one, die off with the very pardonable
and very harmless belief that the world never can get along without the
aid of South Carolina, it being the parthenon from which the outside
world gets all its greatness. Her leading and very warlike newspapers,
(the people of these United States ought to know, if they do not
already,) it was true, were editorialized, as it was politely called in
the little State-militant, by a species of unreputationized Jew and
Yankee; but this you should know--if you do not already, gentle
reader--that it is only because such employments are regarded by the
lofty-minded chivalry as of too vulgar a nature to claim a place in
their attention.

The clock of old Saint Michaels, a clock so tenacious of its dignity as
to go only when it pleases, and so aristocratic in its habits as not to
go at all in rainy weather;--a clock held in great esteem by the "very
first families," has just struck eleven. The young, pale-faced
missionary inquiringly hesitates before a small, two-story building of
wood, located on the upper side of Church street, and so crabbed in
appearance that you might, without endangering your reputation, have
sworn it had incorporated in its framework a portion of that chronic
disease for which the State has gained for itself an unenviable
reputation. Jutting out of the black, moss-vegetating roof, is an
old-maidish looking window, with a dowdy white curtain spitefully tucked
up at the side. The mischievous young negroes have pecked half the
bricks out of the foundation, and with them made curious grottoes on the
pavement. Disordered and unpainted clapboards spread over the dingy
front, which is set off with two upper and two lower windows, all
blockaded with infirm, green shutters. Then there is a snuffy door,
high and narrow (like the State's notions), and reached by six venerable
steps and a stoop, carefully guarded with a pine hand-rail,