an to make him angry then; I wanted
to laugh to get rid of the phantom that pursued me, Lavinia.

The evening passed off very pleasantly; I think there were some
eighteen of us in the parlor. About ten the General went to the
sugar-house (he commenced grinding yesterday) and whispered to me to
bring the young people down presently. Mr. Bradford and I succeeded in
moving them, and we three girls retired to change our pretty dresses
for plain ones, and get shawls and _nuages_, for our warm week had
suddenly passed away, and it was quite cold out. Some of the gentlemen
remarked that very few young ladies would have the courage to change
pretty evening dresses for calico, after appearing to such advantage.
Many would prefer wearing such dresses, however inappropriate, to the
sugar-mill. With his droll gravity, Gibbes answered, "Oh, our girls
don't want to be stuck up!"

There was quite a string of us as we straggled out in the beautiful
moonlight, with only Mrs. Badger as an escort. Mr. Enders and I had a
gay walk of it, and when we all met at the furnace, we stopped and
warmed ourselves, and had a laugh before going in. Inside, it was
lighted up with Confederate gas, in other words, pine torches, which
shed a delightful light, neither too much nor too little, over the
different rooms. We tried each by turns. The row of bubbling kettles
with the dusky negroes bending over in the steam, and lightly turning
their paddles in the foamy syrup, the whole under the influence of
torchlight, was very interesting; but then, Mr. Enders and I found a
place more pleasant still. It was in the first purgery, standing at the
mouth of the chute through which the liquid sugar runs into the car;
and taking the place of the car as soon as it was run off to the
coolers, each armed with a paddle, scraped the colon up and had our own
fun while eating. Then running along the little railroad to where the
others stood in the second room over the vats, and racing back again
all together to eat sugar-cane and cut up generally around our first
pine torch, we had really a gay time.

Presently "Puss wants a corner" was suggested, and all flew up to the
second staging, under the cane-carrier and by the engine. Such racing
for corners! Such scuffles among the gentlemen! Such confusion among
the girls when, springing forward for a place, we would find it already
occupied! All dignity was discarded. We laughed and ran as loud and
fast as any children, and