This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about
with easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap. Is it
"low" to dwell upon these things of the senses, when one is on a tour
in search of the picturesque? Let the reader ride from Abingdon
through a wilderness of cornpone and rusty bacon, and then judge.
There were, to be sure, novels lying about, and newspapers, and
fragments of information to be picked up about a world into which the
travelers seemed to emerge. They, at least, were satisfied, and went
off to their rooms with the restful feeling that they had arrived
somewhere and no unquiet spirit at morn would say "to horse." To
sleep, perchance to dream of Tatem and his household cemetery; and
the Professor was heard muttering in his chamber,