As the guests came down, Miss Sibby, in her only black silk dress and Irish gauze cap, received them at the foot of the stairs, and took them in turn to their appointed places.
The negro fiddlers were seated in the kitchen near the door, which was opened into the parlor.
The young people formed a double set on the parlor floor.
The elders sat on comfortable seats in the parlor bedroom, with the door open, so that they could see the dancers and hear the music, while gossiping with each other.
“The fun grew fast and furious”
as the witches’ dance at Kirk Alloway.
“Miss Sibby!” cried Wynnette, in one of the breathless pauses of the whirling reel—“Miss Sibby, for downright roaring fun and jollification your party does whip the shirt off the back of every party given this winter.”
“I’m proud you like it; but, oh, my dear Miss Wynnette Force, do not put it that there way! Wherever did you pick up sich expressions? It must a been from them niggers,” said Miss Sibby, deprecatingly.
“I reckon it was from the niggers I ‘picked up sich expressions,’ Miss Sibby, for the words and phrases they let fall are often very expressive—and I take to them so naturally that I sometimes think I must have been a nigger myself in some stage of pre-existence,” laughed Wynnette.
“I don’t know what you are talking about, child; but I do know as you sartainly ought to break yourself of that there habit of speaking.”