cession, to
run to the village store for candy at twenty-five cents per pound,
containing as much _terra alba_ (white clay) as sugar. With well-filled
pockets they would run back to the procession and fill the girls' aprons
with the sweets, soon repeating the process, and showering upon the fair
ones cakes, raisins, nuts, and oranges. The only young man who seemed
to find no favor in any woman's eyes invested more capital in sweetmeats
than the others; and though every girl in the procession gave him a
sharp word or a kick as he passed, yet none refused his candies as he
tossed them at the maidens, or stuffed them into the pockets of their
dresses.

The second ceremony was performed in about three minutes, and the
preacher feeling faint from his long ride through the woods, declared he
must have some supper. So, while he was being served, the girls chatted
together, the old ladies helped each other to snuff with little wooden
paddles, which were left protruding from one corner of their mouths
after they had taken "a dip," as they called it. The boys, after
learning that the preacher had postponed the third marriage for an hour,
with a wild shout scampered off to Stewart's store for more candies. I
took advantage of the interim to inquire how it was that the young
ladies and gentlemen were upon such terms of pleasant intimacy.

"Well, captain," replied the person interrogated, "you sees we is all
growed up together, and brotherly love and sisterly affection is our
teaching. The brethren love the sisteren; and they say that love begets
love, so the sisteren loves the brethren. It's parfecly nateral. That's
the hull story, captain. How is it up your way?"

At last the preacher declared himself satisfied with all he had eaten,
and that enough was as good as a feast; so the young people fell into
line, and we trudged to the third house, where, with the same dispatch,
the third couple were united. Then the fiddler scraped the strings of
his instrument, and a double-shuffle dance commenced. The girls stamped
and moved their feet about in the same manner as the men. Soon four or
five of the young ladies left the dancing-party, and seated themselves
in a corner, pouting discontentedly. My companion explained to me that
the deserters were a little stuck-up, having made two or three visits on
a schooner to the city (Newbern), where they had other ways of dancing,
and where the folks didn't think it pretty for a girl to strike he