A first-person memoir of girlhood and social customs in a Southern city, recalling childhood routines, schooling, family entertainments, markets, shops, fashions, music, theater, and civic spaces; descriptions extend to plantation visits, domestic service, seasonal festivals, balls and weddings, and the effects of the Civil War on everyday life. Vivid vignettes of people, buildings, and pastimes are organized into topical chapters and illustrated with period images, offering reflective observations on changing manners, memory, and the passage from a vanished social world.
