4th.

I hear to-day that the Brunots have returned to Baton Rouge, determined
to await the grand finale there. They, and two other families, alone
remain. With these exceptions, and a few Dutch and Irish who cannot
leave, the town is perfectly deserted by all except the Confederate
soldiers. I wish I was with them! If all chance of finding lodgings
here is lost, and mother remains with Lilly, as she sometimes seems
more than half inclined, and Miriam goes to Linwood, as she frequently
threatens, I believe I will take a notion, too, and go to Mrs. Brunot!
I would rather be there, in all the uncertainty, expecting to be
shelled or burnt out every hour, than here. Ouf! what a country! Next
time I go shopping, I mean to ask some clerk, out of curiosity, what
they _do_ sell in Clinton. The following is a list of a few of the
articles that shopkeepers actually laugh at you if you ask for:
Glasses, flour, soap, starch, coffee, candles, matches, shoes, combs,
guitar-strings, bird-seed,--in short, everything that I have heretofore
considered as necessary to existence. If any one had told me I could
have lived off of cornbread, a few months ago, I would have been
incredulous; now I believe it, and return an inward grace for the
blessing at every mouthful. I have not tasted a piece of wheatbread
since I left home, and shall hardly taste it again until the war is
over.

I do not like this small burg. It is very straggling and pretty, but I
would rather not inhabit it. We are as well known here as though we
carried our cards on our faces, and it is peculiarly disagreeable to me
to overhear myself spoken about, by people I don't know, as "There goes
Miss Morgan," as that young man, for instance, remarked this morning to
a crowd, just as I passed. It is not polite, to say the least.

Will Carter was here this morning and told me he saw Theodore Pinckney
in the streets. I suppose he is on his way home, and think he will be a
little disappointed in not finding us at Linwood as he expects, and
still more so to hear he passed through the very town where we were
staying, without knowing it.

BEECH GROVE,
September 6th, Saturday.

Another perch for Noah's duck! Where will I be in a week or two from
this? I shall make a mark, twenty pages from here, and see where I
shall be when I reach it. Here, most probably; but oh, if I could then
be