OF A NEW ENGLAND BRIDE AND OF A SOUTHERN MATRON. BY CAROLINE GILMAN. NEW EDITION, REVISED. NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM & CO., 10 PARK PLACE. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by G. P. PUTNAM & CO. In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York. 66 PREFACE. THE "SOUTHERN MATRON" was penned in the same spirit, and with the same object, as the "New-England Housekeeper"-to present as exact a picture as possible of local habits and manners. Every part, except the love-passages," is founded in events of actual occurrence. Should it be thought that the views of human life in the two works, as has been suggested in private, have too much sunshine about them, I can only reply, that, to have made different descriptions, I must have resorted to imagination instead of fact, as far as my personal observation is concerned. Perhaps, had I examined the details of the police-courts for my Northern sketch, or the registry of the magistratefreeholders for my Southern, I might have found gloomier scenes; but they would not have been such as Clarissa Packard and Cornelia Wilton would recognize in their daily experience. Some apology may be necessary, as a matter of taste, for the frequent introduction of the negro dialect; but the |