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 pl