"Too bad! Too bad, indeed!" said the lady from the mines, with more good nature than discretion; "too bad that you should have to dance, at your age, to make up a set!"

"What's that you say?" demanded Miss Sibby, with much spirit. "Me dance to make up a set, when all them five young gals was waiting? Me? Why, 'oman, I dote on dancing! I think it's heavenly--perfectly heavenly! It ought to be a lawful part of worship, sez I!"

"Oh, if that's your sort, I have no more to say! I only thought you looked kind o' played out and done for, that's all!" said Mrs. Anglesea.

"It does sort o' try one's breath; but it is heavenly, for all that!

Perfectly heavenly! And I mean to dance the next set, too, if I can only get a partner!"

In other parts of the room other talk was going on.

"Odalite," said Leonidas, "will you give me the next dance?"

"Certainly I will, Le! I would have given you the first one, only I wanted you to dance with Miss Sibby!"

"Well, I obeyed you, and danced with her."

"You did not find it hard, did you?"

"I found it--funny!"

"Oh!"

"Miss Wynnette," said young Edward Grandiere, "will you be so very good as to give me this next dance, also?"

"Not if I know it! I mean, thank you very much, but I hope you will do me the favor of asking one of the Misses Elk to dance with you. I intend to put on Le's cap and be a gentleman, and ask one of your sisters to dance with me."

"Why, Miss Wynnette, how strange!"

"There's no help for it; there are not gentlemen enough in the company, so I must be one! Why, just see, here are fourteen ladies and only seven gentlemen. And always about the same proportion in this neighborhood, whether it be a ball, or a dinner party, or a tea-drinking, or a little dance like this. It is always the same--about twice as many ladies as gentlemen! Oh, I don't know what is to become of us all, unless we go out as missionaries to the heathen!" sighed Wynnette.

"You must not go! I beg you will stay and take care of one poor heathen!"

said the boy, trying his boyish best to be gallant.

"Maybe I will--stay and take care of poor, old Gov. Broadvally, who has gout in his great toe and infidelity on his brain, and neither wife nor child to make him a poultice, or read him a sermon," said Wynnette, as she sprang up and left the side of her partner.

"Rosemary, darling, will you dance this set with me? I wished so much to dance the first set with you, but----" Roland Bayard, who was the speaker, paused, and Rosemary finished the sentence for him:

"You were caught and carried away captive by a gay lady! And what could a gentleman do?" she asked, smiling.

"Will you dance this set with me, then, darling child?" he repeated.

"With real pleasure, Roland," she answered, giving him her hand.

And he led her out.

In the sets that were now forming, the Grandiere girls, as well as all the other children, danced, and all the grown women sat down, except Miss Sibby, who conscripted Mr. Force to dance with her.

Wynnette, as a gentleman, led out the youngest Miss Grandiere. And, the two sets being complete, the music struck up, the dancing commenced,

"And all went merry as a marriage bell."

The dancing concluded with the rollicking merry-go-round, called, in these days, the "Virginia Reel," but in the olden times known as "Sir Roger de Coverly," in which all hands--men, women and children, young and old--joined heartily, and none more heartily than Miss Sibby.

"Enjoy yourself as long as you can, sez I!" she hastily whispered into the ear of Le, as he whirled her around in the giddy maelstrom of that mad dance.

At ten o'clock the fiddlers had rest to their elbows and the banjo players to their hands, when they were marched off to the kitchen, to partake of good Christmas cheer.

In the parlor the guests were seated in somewhat stiff and formal rows, on sofas and chairs ranged along the wall, while two menservants, Jake and Jerry, bearing large trays of refreshments, made the circuit of the room--Jerry going first, with a great plum cake and plain pound cake, each beautifully frosted and decorated, and neatly cut from the center to the edge, ready for helping, and a pile of small, china plates and damask napkins. Le Force, walking beside this waiter, served each guest with a plate, a napkin and a slice of each cake.

Behind Jerry came Jake, bearing another large tray laden with cut-gla.s.s goblets filled to the brim with snowy, frothy eggnog, or amber apple toddy, or golden lemon punch. And beside this waiter walked Mr. Force, serving each guest with the special nectar he or she preferred.

When these good things had been disposed of, although it was but half-past ten, carriages were ordered, and all the county neighbors took leave and went home, for these were simple days "before the war"--or "befo' de wo,"

as the negroes more truly, if less grammatically, put it. And the people wished to get home and go to bed, that they might rise on Christmas morning in time to attend church in the forenoon.

Within an hour after their departure the household at Mondreer had retired to rest.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

A DECISIVE INTERVIEW

Sunrise on Christmas morning found all the family of Mondreer a.s.sembled in the drawing room, which had been already restored to order by the servants, and where no vestige of the previous night's festivity remained, except the beautiful evergreen decorations.

"Who are for church this morning?" inquired Mr. Force, looking around upon his a.s.sembled household.

"I think we all are, except, perhaps, Odalite, who may naturally shrink from the ordeal of appearing there so soon," replied Mrs. Force, in a tone so very subdued that it was scarcely redeemed from being that breach of good breeding, a whisper in company.

But Odalite, who stood next to her mother, heard the words, and replied:

"I must not shrink from going to church, mamma. If people choose to stare at me, to see how I bear what they suppose to be a heavy disappointment and a deep mortification, they will do so from a kindly interest, I am sure, and they will be pleased to find that, though I may be 'perplexed,'

I am 'not in despair.' Besides, mamma, the longer I stay away from church, the more I shall be stared at when I go."

"You are right, my dear," said Mr. Force, who immediately went out to give orders that all the carriages in the stables--that is to say, the family coach, the break and the buggy--should be got ready and brought around to take the family to All Faith Church.

There were other duties to be done before they broke their fast. On this day, the servants, not only of the house, but of the plantation, were all called in to family prayers.

The devotions were led by Mr. Force, a.s.sisted by Le.

When they were concluded, Christmas presents were distributed by the children of the family to all the negroes present, and sent by them to all those who, from old age, infancy or illness, were unable to attend the gathering.

When all the plantation servants had retired, with grat.i.tude and gladness, the family went in to breakfast, where they enjoyed a merry morning meal.

As soon as it was over, they retired to their chambers to get ready for church.

And there each one, in his or her sanctuary, found some token of the presence of Santa Claus to be first discovered and enjoyed in secret. All were more or less valuable and attractive, but among so many presents, in so large a family, but few may be noticed.