The Queen said she was more than glad to meet me, and she would have liked very much to have been present, and heard the speech that her cousin said I made....  She told me she hoped that would not be the last visit I would make to their city.  I shook hands with her and bade her good-bye.  The distinguished friend carried me and showed me the different departments of the palace, and I bade him good-bye.

In Raleigh, I think, they rather like Latta.  It amuses them to see him go north and get money, and it is said that he appreciates the situation himself.  He ought to.  Not many southern negroes have such comfortable homes as “Latta University’s” best kept-up building—­the residence of the President.

CHAPTER XXVIII

UNDER ST. MICHAEL’S CHIMES

    And where St. Michael’s chimes
    The fragrant hours exquisitely tell,
    Making the world one loveliness, like a true poet’s rhymes.

    —­RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

It has been said—­by Mrs. T.P.  O’Connor, I think—­that whereas twenty-five letters of introduction for New York may produce one invitation to dinner, one letter of introduction for Charleston will produce twenty-five dinner invitations.  If this be an exaggeration it is, at least, exaggeration in the right direction; that is, along the lines of truth.  For though Charleston’s famed “exclusiveness” is very real, making letters of introduction very necessary to strangers desiring to see something of the city’s social life, such letters produce, in Charleston, as Mrs. O’Connor suggests, results definite and delightful.

Immediately upon our arrival, my companion and I sent out several letters we had brought with us, and presently calling cards began to arrive for us at the hotel.  Also there came courteous little notes, delivered in most cases by hand, according to the old Charleston custom—­a custom surviving pleasantly from times when there were no postal arrangements, but plenty of slaves to run errands.  Even to this day, I am told, invitations to Charleston’s famous St. Cecilia balls are delivered by hand.

One of the notes we received revealed to us a characteristic custom of the city.  It contained an invitation to occupy places in the pew of a distinguished family, at St. Michael’s Church, on the approaching Sunday morning.  In order to realize the significance of such an invitation one must understand that St. Michael’s is to Charleston, socially, what St. George’s, Hanover Square, is to London.  A beautiful old building, surrounded by a historic burial ground and surmounted by a delicate white spire containing fine chimes, it strongly suggests the architectural touch of Sir Christopher Wren; but it is not by Wren, for he died a number of years before 1752, when the cornerstone of St. Michael’s was laid.  When the British left Charleston—­or Charles Town, as the name of the place stands in the early records—­after occupying it during the Revolutionary War, they took with them, to the horror of the city, the bells of St. Michael’s, and the church books.  The silver, however, was saved, having been concealed on a plantation some miles from Charleston.  Later the bells were returned.