TWO INVITATIONS 93 to one of those open squares, which, covered with a scattered growth of immense live-oak trees, are such a peculiar and strikingly South- ern feature of the city. They sat down upon the buttressed roots of one of the oaks, whence they could look away beyond the hill-spurs to the low swamps of Wakulla, out of which rises the far-famed and mysterious smoke column of the so-called vol- cano. The sky overhead, seen through rifts in the foliage, was blue and cloudless ; but heavy Gulf-caps hung on the horizon south. There was a dancing silver film in the atmos- phere of the mid-distance, unlike any thing ever seen in a Northern climate. The wood, fringing the ridge a mile away, waved its shadowy tree-tops to the fitful motions of a breeze. A long angular line of water-fowl slowly flew northwestward, so high that the individual birds looked like mere flickering specks ; but their clanging voices fell to earth with great distinctness and power. A ragged negro, whose face wore the marks of utter resignation to hopeless poverty, went past in a rude cart, drawn by a lean little ox, working