hristmas good cheer was at an end.

But the festival was not over. Games and dances followed the feast. The
piano-top was lifted, and light fingers rattled out lively music to
which a hundred flying feet quickly responded. Country-dances they were,
the lancers and quadrilles. Round dances were still looked upon in that
rural locality as an improper innovation. The good old major, in his
frock coat and high collar, started the ball, seizing the prettiest girl
by the hand and leading her to the head of the room, while the others
quickly followed in pairs. Thus, with the touch of nimble fingers on the
ivory keys and the tap of feet and the whirl of skirts over the unwaxed
floor, mingled with jest and mirth, the evening passed gayly on, the
old-fashioned Virginia reel closing the ball and bringing the day's busy
reign of festivity to an end.

But the whites did not have all the fun to themselves. The colored
folks had their parties and festivities as well, their mistresses
superintending the suppers and decorating the tables with their own
hands, while ladies and gentlemen from the mansion came to look on, an
attention which was considered a compliment by the ebon guests. And the
Christmas season rarely passed without a colored wedding, the holidays
being specially chosen for this interesting ceremony.

The dining-room or the hall of the mansion often served for this
occasion, the master joining in matrimony the happy couple; or a colored
preacher might perform the ceremony in the quarters. But in either case
the event went gayly off, the family attending to get what amusement
they could out of the occasion, while the mistress arranged the
trousseau for the dusky bride.

But it is with the one Christmas only that we are here concerned, and
that ended as happily and merrily as it had begun, midnight passing
before the festivities came to an end. How many happy dreams followed
the day of joy and how many nightmares the heavy feast is more than we
are prepared to put on record.

_CAPTAIN GORDON AND THE RACCOON ROUGHS._

The outbreak of the Civil War, the most momentous conflict of recent
times, was marked by a wave of fervent enthusiasm in the States of the
South which swept with the swiftness of a prairie fire over the land.
Pouring in multitudes into the centres of enlistment, thousands and tens
of thousands of stalwart men offered their services in defence of their
cause, gathering into companies and regiments